The year 1829. Nikolay Gogol, a young Third Section clerk, is desperate: his own books seem shallow and mediocre, so he keeps buying entire print runs just to burn them all. He is suffering from violent epileptic seizures and struggles to keep on working. Investigator Yakov Guro accidentally witnesses one such fit and realizes that Gogol’s visions contain clues that could help solve actual crimes. Together, Gogol and Guro take on a particularly weird and baffling case that brings them to a small village of Dikanka, where everyone has a huge secret to hide.

The true-life, stranger-than-fiction tale of eighteenth-century Greek pirate turned merchant Ioannis Varvakis, who rose from humble beginnings to become the head of one of the largest mercantile empires in Europe.

SweptupinpoliticalunrestduringWorldWarI,twosistersinSt.PetersburgcopewithturbulentromancesasRussianhistoryismadearoundthem.

An unscrupulous debt collector who is a prominent member of the Moscow elite has just a few hours to refute an accusation that might cost him his job and his life.