About the book: year / Children disappear in one of the old districts of St. Petersburg. The search leads the investigation to a psychiatric hospital, the outlandish house of a famous director, the museum-palace of the Grand Duke and the 24 Hours store. With each of the main characters - an investigator, a museum security guard and a socialite psychologist - events occur that can be mistaken for mystical sacraments, and for the delirium of an upset consciousness, and for the real intervention of the ancient past in modern life. For all the fascination of the detective plot, the novel is serious - a reflection on what is happening to us now in our world. About lost and stolen children. About eccentrics who are frightened by their own inventions, but in the face of real dangers they show amazing fearlessness. Who is afraid to leave the house or kiss a girl, but calmly stands at gunpoint. A novel about psychologists and psychiatrists, investigators and those under investigation, about the dead who return to take revenge on the living. And of course, about St. Petersburg and about love.