We present to the reader one of the most amazing novels of the early 21st century (in 2015, it received a long-awaited sequel - “Shadow of the Mountain”). This confession, refracted in artistic form, of a man who managed to get out of the abyss and survive, sold four million copies around the world (half a million of them in Russia) and earned enthusiastic comparisons with the works of the best writers of the modern era, from Melville to Hemingway. Like the author, the hero of this novel hid from the law for many years. Deprived of parental rights after his divorce from his wife, he became addicted to drugs, committed a number of robberies and was sentenced by an Australian court to nineteen years in prison. Having escaped from a maximum security prison for the second year, he reached Bombay, where he was a counterfeiter and smuggler, sold weapons and participated in showdowns of the Indian mafia, and also found his true love, only to lose her again, only to find her again...