“If you want to get lots of gifts on your birthday and read a ton of compliments, take care of it yourself—otherwise everyone will forget.” That’s what Anya’s friend Yevlampiya Romanova was told by her friend Anyechka—and she asked for help organizing a birthday surprise for her mother-in-law, whom everyone calls Mrylysa. The gift was a success: a luxurious chocolate jigsaw puzzle shaped like a palace and its inhabitants. After quickly assembling this magnificent beauty, the women sat down to drink tea.
Lampushe and Mrylysa felt sorry to eat such a beauty, but Annyuta indulged herself and… ended up in the hospital! Yevlampiya and Max turned to Professor Moysey Zilberkrants, a well-known specialist in poisonous substances. He concluded that Anya had been poisoned by snail venom—found in the chocolate present. But his colleague Yuriy Derevyankin insists that Zilberkrants was mistaken. That poison comes from a lizard with a goatee—or rather, from a “jester lizard.” And soon Moysey Abramovich dies by suicide. Why?! Didn’t the proud Monya survive humiliation? Doesn’t seem like him.
Vulf and his team begin an investigation, not suspecting how many more deaths await them beyond the gates of the chocolate castle!