New York is shaken by a series of brutal murders, marked by the same handwriting. The press claims that the killer is a moralist addressing a certain message to society. A whole team of detectives led by Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta, with the participation of FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast, is involved in the investigation. The investigation is trying unsuccessfully to establish a connection between the victims, but they are so far from each other that it is difficult to imagine a common motive for the murders. True, all these people were “incredibly rich” and “scandalously vicious.” And each had their head cut off... “I’ve never seen a case so resistant to analysis,” Pendergast claims. Is it really the first time he had to face an opponent whose intellectual superiority is undeniable?..For the first time in Russian!