Umberto Eco is the most famous Italian writer, cultural historian, philosopher, mass media theorist, linguist, semiotician, university lecturer, member of leading world academies, laureate of the largest prizes in the world, knight of the Grand Cross and the Order of the Legion of Honor, founder and director of scientific and artistic journals, prominent collector of ancient books and novelist, one of the main authors of our time. . . The action unfolds almost entirely in France, but the consequences of this intrigue will tragically shock the whole world. Soon, the center of events will be Russia, where in 1905 the famous literary forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" was first published. The novel documents the efforts that went into creating this forgery. The main character is quite vile, and everything that happens to him is both terrifying and interesting. . The author, building the plot in the spirit of Alexandre Dumas, leads the breathless reader through the foul-smelling Parisian sewers and gang dens, recruits the hero into Garibaldi's army, makes him spy on all the intelligence and counterintelligence agencies of the world, including the Russian secret police, tame hysterics from Doctor Charcot's clinic, drink beer with Sigmund Freud, charge alongside Liberty on the barricades, and even participate in a satanic mass. At the same time, as always, Umberto Eco delivers to the reader, wrapped in the guise of an adventure novel, a huge charge of knowledge and ideas.