Secret People

Christmas Petrograd. Over a sumptuous dinner at a trendy restaurant, detectives Lykov and Azvestopulo notice two suspicious characters sitting nearby. One of them is young, seemingly lucky, with clearly criminal manners. The other is shaved, his cheeks glisten—undoubtedly a German. Although the detectives have indulged a bit, they decide to follow the suspicious subjects.
However, the criminal and the German adeptly dissolve into the damp St. Petersburg night. Their trail leads the detectives to the hotel 'Mitava', where the bellboy has seen the duo in a private room. That's perfect! Now the forensic experts will identify the criminal by his fingerprints and find out his name at the registration desk of the Police Department.
The results of the examination turned out to be simply shocking… Only the fingerprints of the German Vedel were found in the hotel room. There were no other prints. To be precise, there were some, but without any papillary lines. And how can one identify traces that do not exist?

An exciting historical detective story from the winner of the 'Russian Detective' award, Nikolai Svechin. The novel is part of a series about detective Alexei Lykov and is the 38th in the count.