This has not happened in Odessa for a long time - two prisoners make a daring escape from a maximum security colony. One of them, a repeat offender nicknamed Kosyak, is mortally wounded. According to the laws of the world of thieves, before his death, he bequeaths his accomplice Taras Reshetkin, better known in the zone as the Boy, to take revenge on the famous lawyer Shimansky. At one time, he cruelly framed Kosyak and put him behind bars... And soon operatives Vasily Semenov and Grigory Oparin begin to investigate the murder of a lawyer. It would seem that everything is simple and obvious. But in the course of his work, Semenov comes to the conviction that the real killer is not the Boy at all and that Shimansky’s death is not connected with the revenge of a former prisoner. Just then one long-standing, at one time sensational case comes to light, which Oparin for some reason considered not worthy of attention...