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For some time now, a brazen and bloodthirsty killer has been operating in Severoyelansk. He slaughtered the family of the wealthy Ushakov: his young children, mother, servants, and wife. At the time, Ushakov was waiting for her at the theater—after all, she is one of the leading actresses. The detectives quickly find the supposed criminal, but the whole thing looks very much like a setup. Then another brutal murder takes place at a hotel—again involving a leading actress of the local theater, Kanevskaya, and her lover. Is it a coincidence? Involuntarily, the head of the criminal police, Tartishchev, recalls the suicide of the theater’s prima donna Muromtseva, which occurred several months earlier. And a number of clues that surface during the investigation of these bloody crimes indicate that she, too, was murdered, with poison slipped to her instead of tooth drops...