The Secret of Dutch Tiles

A strange theft occurs in a mansion in Tsarskoye Selo near St. Petersburg – an unknown person takes only 20 tiles of Flemish work, united by one theme: playing children. The owner of the house, a wealthy businessman, is intrigued and asks investigator Maria Karava from Petrovka, who has brilliantly established herself in matters related to history and art, to take on this case 'privately'. At the same time, fires break out almost simultaneously in Moscow: one in the luxurious 'Metropol' hotel, the other in an office in Patriarch Ponds. Two people, who have no connection with each other – a Dutch tourist and a capital antiquarian – perish in the flames. And while Senior Officer Andrei Yakovlev follows the smoky trail leading to a Ural prison, where a pyromaniac and mass murderer has been serving time for many years, Maria Karava travels to Bruges and Antwerp, investigating the circumstances of the life of a mysterious family from the 16th century. However, neither of them considers that the mystery from four centuries ago and the modern deaths in the fire may be links in a single chain…