On the fortieth birthday of the famous and suddenly deceased writer Gleb Kuraeva, who became famous for his works about the life of geologists and the nature of Siberia, Mikhail Gorsky learns about the unrealized plan of his favorite author - his novel “Tactics of Disappearance”, sketches of which are kept by Kuraev’s friend Vika. Without having access to the archive of the deceased, Gorsky decides to reconstruct the history of the origin of Kuraev’s plan, and then dares to write this novel for his, as he is convinced, like-minded person and brother in spirit. What started this whole story and what happened as a result unfolds in a two-part narrative: Mikhail Gorsky from the first part of the novel in the second part “reincarnates” into the supposedly living Gleb Kuraev, who is looking for liberation from the bustle of the city in the virgin northern lands and writes the novel “ Disappearance strategy."