Shamil Idiatullin is a prose writer and journalist, twice winner of the Big Book Prize, a master of various genres: the author of the realistic novels The City of Brezhnev and The Former Lenin, the mystical thriller Ubyr, the ethno-fantasy The Last Time, the novel The return of “Pioneer” and the collection “Everything is like people” (the last two are simply fantastic). Russia, province, autumn 2021. The local authorities urgently needed to revive the literary magazine “Flame”. Freshman Anya is assigned to study the magazine's archives - and there, among the graphomaniac deposits, the young editor finds the manuscript of a gripping thriller written from the perspective of a serial killer. And it soon turns out that the murders described in the text were not invented: they actually happened in the town fifteen years ago, and the murderer was never caught... The author of the manuscript learns about the excavations in the archive - and now the long-hidden maniac must choose what he wants more: peace that Anya can disturb, or literary glory?