By Highest Command

1911, the end of a hot summer, St. Petersburg. The head of the capital's criminal police, Vladimir Gavrilovich Filippov, along with his assistant Alexander Pavlovich Sviridov, investigates the strange suicide of law faculty professor Sergey Zimin. A series of murders of people connected to Zimin intertwines with the investigation, and the political views of both Zimin and his murdered acquaintances come to light. These views are quite unreliable. However, one witness characterizes Zimin differently. According to him, Zimin is a provocateur and an agent of the security agency, encouraging his beloved and her brother to assassinate none other than Pyotr Stolypin himself! The detectives take on the case, but as it progresses, it becomes more tangled, as the interests of quite high-ranking individuals intervene. The novel is based on real events.