You Will Die Beautiful

Paris. Our days. Former criminal analyst Emil Gershi and his sister Zoia, an art scholar who can see the souls of criminals through and through, investigate the disappearance of boys from the Lycée Henry IV, who were fascinated by black magic. Child psychologist and blogger Vera Maksimova arrives in Paris at their invitation to unravel the complicated connection between the literature teacher—who is suspected of a series of murders—and his students. But she falls under the spell of a possible maniac known as the “Ghost of Tuileries.” Twenty years ago, young women were found dead in the Tuileries Park. Dressed in carnival outfits, they sat like dolls with a deep puncture wound in their bodies. Was the teacher never caught, and now has he grown old and enjoys staging costumed performances, watching them from the windows of his apartment? Soon they discover one of his students—dressed in a dress—and killed with a sharp instrument… But is the killer truly the teacher? A story about an aesthetic maniac in which the partners are a thoughtful, romantic girl from St. Petersburg and a hot-tempered, slightly cynical Frenchman who looks like an anime character. They are helped by the mysterious Zoia, interested in the connection between art and nature in crimes. And the whole story unfolds against the backdrop of Paris—on its narrow streets, in the offices of the Police Prefecture, at Père Lachaise Cemetery, and in the grand Louvre among the world masterpieces of Michelangelo, da Vinci, and Watteau.