June 1950, Washington. Maria Epron is on trial: she is accused of murdering an American agent and working for Soviet intelligence - if Maria is found guilty, she faces the electric chair. She doesn't have a lawyer. Her only protection is her own memories, the captivating beauty of a woman who has not yet aged and her artistic gift. The trial of the fugitive Russian actress will last four days. But in this short period of time, the reader, together with the heroine, will visit the Kremlin backstage, on the stages of leading Moscow theaters, survive the hardships of Stalin’s repressions, find themselves in distant Birobidzhan, the capital of the Jewish Autonomous Region in Siberia, learn about the difficult fate of Gulag prisoners, and plunge into the world of Broadway productions. This whole complicated story - the veracity of which is questioned by the judicial commission - would not have happened if one dark winter night the young actress had not attended a private dinner with the Leader.