Writing detective stories is hard, but finding plots for them is even harder! My friend Kira came to me and told me a heart-rending story. She had fallen in love with a certain Edward with a sweet surname—Malina—and decided to leave her husband. But “one small detail” prevented her from reuniting with her beloved: Edik’s sick wife, for whose treatment Kira had borrowed the diamond necklace with a huge emerald that her husband had given her. And then Malina melted away—with love and with the necklace. But Kira has Edik’s address. So I’m going to this bastard to get the necklace back. However, in the place given, some kind of nobody lives. Someone clearly took his passport. Out of grief, Kira poisoned herself and ended up in intensive care. What the heck—what a plot for a detective! And where am I supposed to look for the scoundrel?…
But then light begins to glimmer at the end of the tunnel—I’m approaching the resolution, having questioned a bunch of witnesses. “Fake Malina” has many faces: he’s both the killer and the seducer and the extortionist—pure negative charisma. But if I’m not Viola Tarakanova, then I won’t fall for that trick, like so many others. Him, he won’t be able to charm me…