The Staff of Two-Faced Janus

In the new novel, Alexandra Marinina preserves her signature style, with an emphasis on psychological precision, social observations, and detective elements. For the first time, the author introduces a plot line from the future, allowing the reader to see the crime through the eyes of people for whom the truth no longer matters.

In 2024, in Moscow, a double tragedy occurs: a young woman is killed—known for her video blogs about phone scams—and her neighbor, a former police colonel, is found hanged. The official version is that it was murder and suicide, and the case is quickly closed. But everything looks too smooth…

It has been 66 years, and the son of the well-known writer Strazhalkovsky tries to uncover the truth, not for the sake of justice, but in order to republish the book that brought their family fame—with clarified facts from one of its chapters. To do this, he hires Evgeny Bocharov, who must go back to the past. In 2090, the technology “Tunnel” allows the traveler to observe events from the past without interfering. The agent is prepared under the guidance of Nayanna, a young instructor who becomes involved with the case personally faster than she realizes. However, on the way to the truth stands a certain influential person who doesn’t want the journey to happen…