Nikolay Kolchitskiy

Colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Lukyanov, is going on vacation with his wife to a resort town, where his old friend, Major Alekseev, a local police officer, lives. When they meet, the old friends agree to catch up the next day, but Alekseev seems worried about something he needs to finish. That night, Alekseev goes on a mission alone, during which he is hit by a car. When Lukyanov hears about it, he offers his help to the local police as a private individual, feeling it is his duty to find out the circumstances of his friend's death. The colonel will have to determine whether it was a deliberate murder or an accident.

The main character, an official of the 14th grade, Erast Petrovich Fandorin, serves as a clerk in the Detective Department and secretly dreams of becoming a detective. By the will of circumstances, he finds himself involved in the investigation of a mysterious suicide.