Alexander Marinina’s 50th, anniversary novel. For the first time, Anastasia Kamenskaya studies an old criminal case based on a real crime. The convicted person is serving his sentence in a correctional facility to this day.
Since childhood, we’ve been used to believing that truth is singular—like a white pebble in a pile of black gravel. You just have to sort everything through, and you’ll surely find the one undeniable, unconditional truth… But is it really that simple?
Long ago, in a Moscow communal apartment, a brutal triple murder was committed—parents and a child. The suspect came forward himself with a confession. The police detained him, the investigation took place, and there was a trial.
After twenty years, the old case lands in the hands of the legendary retired operative Anastasia Kamenskaya and a young journalist, Petr Kravchenko. The young man believes the convicted man was framed and sets out to expose the investigators. That’s when it becomes clear: in this story, everyone is driven by their own truth—truth that in turn breeds thousands of kinds of lies…