After graduation our main character Yesenia dreams about work- ing with Rodion Meglin. He is a mysterious, secretive man, a lone investigator with little known about his methods. When Yesenia turns into his trainee she begins to realize that the essence of his method is that Meglin himself – that of a maniac. He feels them instinctively. He is allowed to eliminate some of them, look after others and save their lives. Our heroine who was never meant to work alone will go alone, facing the most horrible crimes of the last decade.
Masha, who works for a radio station, and Maxim, a street sweeper with an architectural degree, cross paths with each other when they are at an indecisive point in their lives.
The czar of Russia has died and a power vacuum has developed. This period in the late 16th and early 17th century has been called "The Time of Troubles." There are many impostors who claim to the right to rule, but there's only one heir, the Czarina Kseniya Godunova. She has married a Polish military leader who wants to claim the Russian throne in her name so he can rule all of Russia. As the Poles move in on Moscow in an attempt to install the czarina on the throne, Andrei, a serf with a life-long infatuation of the czarina attempts to save her from her brutal Polish husband.
