Extremely harsh, relentlessly beautiful prose, where the story of plastic surgeon Khripunov intertwines with the fate of Hasan ibn Sabbah, the Persian Old Man of the Mountain and founder of the assassins’ sect, where nobody loves anyone, where each person is firmly obsessed with their own demons and has not the slightest hope of salvation. This is a novel about madness, death, evil—and… beauty. And about the fact that not every desire is worth being fulfilled.