The Ghost of Nameless Lane

In an unnamed Moscow lane, in the basement of a former soap factory, an ancient burial has been found. The remains belong to seven people—two of them are children—and all were shot from a “Mauser” into the back of the head. This old murder-execution led to blood feuds and a chain of new crimes—no less terrible and mysterious. A horrific family story of the soap-makers the Astakhovs, who pass down their craft and their secret through the female line—from Annet to Avrora, to Alexandra, to Alice—captured the interest of senior police lieutenant Dmitry Luzhkov, as well as Ekaterina Petrovskaia, a crime columnist for the press center of the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs, and her longtime friend Sergey Meshcherskiy. The three of them set out to investigate the dark crime, whose statute of limitations has long since passed…