An FBI employee who specializes in working with Russian-speaking Americans, young Karina Lonova, is tasked with investigating the murder of a Russian woman in a small town near Orlando, Florida. The matter turns out to be difficult. Complex, intricate relationships between people bring the investigation to a standstill, and new circumstances arise every now and then. The tracks lead to a professor from Boston; it seems that the case has already been solved. But a thorough analysis of the pathologist's certificate convinces Karina that she is on the wrong path. Unexpected discoveries and disappointed expectations, eternal philosophical problems of good and evil, crime and punishment. Karina has a wise senior mentor - her father, Evgeny Lonov, known to the reader from the trilogy “In Search of Mephistopheles”. Together with him, she breaks the deadlock. The evil was terrible, but the punishment was no less terrible...