An exquisite epistolary detective story. The time of action is the end of the 19th century. A ball at the Institute of Noble Maidens in the provincial town of N-Ska ends in tragedy. To save the innocent from being accused, the young widow Polina Avilova takes on the search for the real killer. The reader will walk along with the heroes through prim noble drawing rooms, a gloomy sanctuary of a wild goddess on an exotic island, brothel bedrooms and classrooms - will this path lead to solving the mystery? Or the past will be stronger... The pages of the novel will take you from Central Russian N-sk to an exotic island, and when the name of the killer is already known even to the police, the mysteries will by no means be exhausted...