The historical detective novel by writer and lawyer Nikita Filatov is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of judicial reform and the centenary of revolutionary events in Russia. The novel is based on the fate of a real person, Vladimir Zhdanov, who at the very beginning of the twentieth century, after serving a tsarist exile for anti-government agitation, became a sworn attorney. Vladimir Zhdanov defended both the terrorist Kalyaev and the legendary Boris Savinkov at public trials, but was subsequently convicted and sent to hard labor. After the February Revolution, he became a commissar of the Provisional Government at the headquarters of front commander Denikin, and in November he was arrested by the Bolsheviks and released only after the intervention of Ulyanov-Lenin, whom he was personally acquainted with. Under Soviet power, Vladimir Zhdanov participated on the defense side in the first public trial on the false accusation of the commander of the Baltic Fleet, Admiral Shchastny, in the high-profile case of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, then he was again exiled by the new authorities, returned, worked in the bar association and in the Politkatorzhan society ...All the events described in this action-packed novel are based on the author’s archival research, as well as on materials from other sources.