Once Upon a Golden Porch

St. Petersburg, the end of 1825. Senator Dvinos is found dead in a locked office. Who benefits from the death of a statesman? Political rivals? Family members? Conspirators whose hour is about to strike? Almost everyone who knew him. That conclusion will come to the extravagant investigator Polikarpov almost as soon as he sets out to follow the killer’s trail. But then—what does an old dead rat found in the late senator’s soup tureen have to do with it?