Annotation: Mystical detective story. The first part "Cold Waters". Petersburg 19th century. The corpse of a salon singer is found in the Winter Canal river, detective Verbin takes up the investigation. A common version of the girl’s death is suicide due to unrequited love for a noble gentleman who should marry a young lady of his circle. However, everything turns out to be not so simple. Soon his bride begins to be haunted by the ghost of the murdered woman. The novel uses motifs from urban legends of St. Petersburg: the drowning of the Winter Canal, the Queen of Spades, the St. Petersburg Sphinxes.