Taiga Gang

1953. By amnesty, a group of prisoners leave an исправительно-трудовой лагерь in Novosibirsk Oblast. Hardly having stepped into freedom, the criminals waste no time and go back to what they know: they smash a rural store and attack women. Stopping the rampage is entrusted to an оперативная группа led by Captain Gennady Lukyanov. His team includes Senior Lieutenant Alla Barysheva, who has recently become a widow under murky circumstances: her husband, a милиции officer, died, and she doesn’t believe the official version.

During a pursuit of the gang through the taiga, Barysheva notices a detail that makes her suspect: her husband’s death was not an accident. Which means that whoever arranged everything will sooner or later try to get rid of her as well…

From city courtyards—to dusty archives; from the victims’ apartments—to ambushes in the forest. The everyday work of Soviet investigators becomes far more dangerous after the amnesty that released thousands of people who are used only to robbery and blood…

At the heart of the story are experienced, restrained professionals—frontline veterans living between personal pain and professional duty. That is exactly how they’re remembered, both from memoirs and from the films that detective fans love so much.