Many troubles befell the simple housewife Polina Ivanova. Her son was maimed by a fighting dog; the husband, who decided to take revenge on the dog’s owner, went to prison and died there of a heart attack... And the owner himself remained unpunished, thanks to the “strong hand” of law enforcement agencies. Desperate to achieve justice, Polina arms herself with her husband's personalized pistol and a bottle of nitroglycerin, bought on the black market, and takes hostage the head of the regional police department, whom she considers guilty of all her misfortunes... This novel is both an exciting detective story, a touching love story, and an acute social story. drama. Based on it, a television series of the same name was filmed starring Maria Shukshina and Alexei Serebryakov.