On the website “Prose. ru” in reviews of this novel the phrase sounded: “They don’t write like that anymore.” Perhaps this is a key characteristic of its content. It seems that in this regard, it will be more to the liking of those who love the Baroque style or adventurous works in the spirit of the romantics of the 19th century. And also for those who simply love beautiful and twisted stories with a large number of characters, a detective line, the theme of love, passion, friendship, betrayal, intrigue and the intricacies of fate. Late 16th - early 17th centuries, early Baroque in art. Ertemiza, the daughter and niece of artists from the Lomi family, Caravaggists, dreams of one thing - to achieve perfection in the craft that her father and uncle taught her since childhood. In this field, she does not want to see any conventions or barriers. Her imagination is limitless, and Ertemiza is able to receive knowledge even from ghosts who appear in her imagination and give advice and tips. But one day a man bursts into her life and distorts her destiny. Married almost by force, forced to leave her hometown, she tries to combine an unprepossessing family life with her favorite job and therefore loses both physical and mental strength already in Florence. And soon the police services learn about a series of murders occurring from time to time in different parts of the Tuscan Duchy. The handwriting of the Whispering Executioner, as the detectives nicknamed him for some peculiarities of pronunciation, is always recognizable: he cuts off the victims’ heads, and the dead are always male rapists, who in one way or another escaped justice in their time for committing atrocities against teenagers or women. Who is he - a ghost of the past who has repeatedly come to Ertemiza in her dreams, taking revenge with the help of a mystical sword, or a seemingly harmless music teacher who knows “everything there is to know, and even a little more than necessary” about the speech structure? What if the Whispering Executioner is a woman? The main characters will have to solve this terrible mystery.