1911, end of hot summer, St. Petersburg. The head of the capital's criminal police, Vladimir Gavrilovich Filippov, together with his assistant Alexander Pavlovich Sviridov, is investigating the strange suicide of Sergei Zimin, a lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the University. The course of the investigation is woven into a series of murders of people associated with Zimin, and the political views of both Zimin himself and his murdered acquaintances come to light. These views are not at all reliable. But one of the witnesses characterizes Zimin from the other side. According to him, Zimin is a provocateur and agent of the secret police, who incited his beloved and her brother to kill no less than Pyotr Stolypin himself! The detectives get down to business, but the further they go, the more confusing it becomes, because the interests of very high-ranking people interfere in the game persons. The novel is based on real events.