“Go, poisoned steel, to its purpose…” With these words Hamlet stabs the king—the murderer of his father. In the theater on Ostozhenka, the King played by people’s artist Natan Zaydel was actually stabbed for real. Someone slipped Hamlet a sharply sharpened rapier—and on stage, to the applause of the audience, the most genuine murder took place. Drongo, the crime expert, analyzes what happened again and again. There’s no doubt the organizer of the crime was truly a genius director. So he must be from the theatrical world?.. Drongo will have to unravel a monstrous knot of intrigues, quarrels, romantic entanglements, envy, and arrogance—everything without which theater is impossible…