September 1950. A night train Moscow—Simferopol.
In the sixth compartment, drops of blood fall onto a sleeping passenger. On the top bunk lies the body of an unknown man—he was killed with three precisely executed knife strikes. Until very recently, an awkward old man in glasses and a straw hat had been riding there, but now—there is only a dead body without documents. The old man has vanished, along with his things. Only one terrifying detail remains:
A PAGE FROM GOGO L’S BOOK WITH THE QUOTE “LIFT UP MY EYELIDS!”.
In the neighboring compartment, investigator Arkady Nikitin is going on vacation—with his wife and daughter. He can’t pretend nothing has happened. Where did the old man go? Who and why swapped him with someone else’s corpse? And the most frightening question—has the criminal already gotten off at a station, or…
IS HE STILL ON THE TRAIN?
Next to the Nikitins’ family rides a silent fellow passenger with a heavy, wolfish gaze. At night he doesn’t sleep. He didn’t notice anything. But when the body is carried out of the carriage, his eyes are fixed not on the murdered man.
ON THE INVESTIGATOR.
A stubborn Moscow detective quickly understands: this isn’t an “ordinary” death on the road. The victim’s neighbor is in a deep sleep—only after valerian. Three strikes—exact, professional, without fuss. The missing suitcase of the old man. And Nikitin is faced with a choice that makes his fingers go numb: listen to Varvara, stay on vacation and protect the family—or go further, into a place where there are no names and no clear clues, only a shadow that has already noticed him.
And that’s why the main question here isn’t “who struck with the knife?”, but…
HOW TO CATCH THE ONE WHO NOBODY HAS SEEN—BUT WHO HAS ALREADY PICKED YOU.