For the first time in Russian - the long-awaited new novel by Diana Setterfield, the celebrated author of The Thirteenth Tale, a recognized masterpiece of modern English prose, which made critics talk about the return of the golden age of the British novel, covered with the names of Charlotte and Emily Brontë and Daphne Du Maurier. In childhood William Bellman kills a rook with a slingshot; An impossible shot across the entire field nevertheless hits the target. This act is soon forgotten, but has unpredictable and tragic consequences many years later, when William has already grown up, become a respected man, happily married, with four children. After all, rooks do not forget anything... And at night, in the cemetery, William makes an incredible deal with a stranger in black, who mysteriously entered his life; a deal that will change William's fate forever.