On a cold New York evening in the winter of 1846, a frightened young woman ran into the police station where Timothy Wild, one of the most deft detectives of the Copper Stars, was on duty. Shaking with cold and fear, she said that her house had been robbed. And when asked what was stolen, she answered: “My family.” Timothy, stunned, did not immediately understand what had happened. Only later, having started an investigation, did he learn what a profitable business it was in New York - to catch slaves and their descendants who had escaped from the South to the North and did not have documents of emancipation. And how dangerous it is to protect these unfortunates within the framework of the law, since the very law of the “democratic” North does not consider them people, preferring to consider fugitives as goods. And where the goods are, there are big profits, which are protected by very big people...