A Secret Against All

Continuation of the "By the Name of Secret" series, featuring the familiar and beloved characters from Tatyana Polyakova’s books. An ironic detective story about the thin line between truth and deception, where everyone has a carefully hidden secret.

This is a fast-paced story with a vivid heroine who notices what slips past others, even when the truth is frightening. A novel in which every detail adds tension and draws you into a labyrinth of mysteries, where the truth itself is at stake.

In a remote thicket, an eighteen-year-old girl is found hanged, and at first glance nothing points to a violent death. But Tatyana Sviridova, a physical training instructor temporarily replacing an investigator who is on sick leave, cannot let the oddities go. Who cut an upward-pointing arrow into the tree trunk, and why? Why are the victim’s jeans completely spotless, even though the ground beneath her is muddy slush? And how could she have climbed a tree alone and so skillfully secured the rope?

The suicide theory is falling apart, and Sviridova’s suspicions are confirmed when another girl is found in a neighboring city, dead in almost the same way. Almost everything matches — even the first letter of the surnames of the hanged girls. And Tatyana, whom her friends nicknamed Secret in her youth, must go against everyone to get on the killer’s trail.