A troop of Red Army soldiers disappears without a trace, in the heart of Kyiv, while visiting a banya, a traditional Ukrainian bathhouse. When Samson discovers fragments of bone in the banya’s furnace, he uncovers a sinister conspiracy. In this third volume of the series about kindhearted Samson and quickwitted Nadezhda, the Ukrainian master of absurd storytelling vividly depicts a Kyiv filled with political turbulence and eccentric characters — and draws playful parallels with the present day.

Samson and his colleague Kholodnyi are supposed to be investigating the sale of illegal meat. Yet they have hardly even begun when Samson’s girlfriend Nadezhda is abducted by striking railroad workers. Samson, of course, sets about trying to free her.
But what are the railroad workers up to? And why has the shadowy Chekist Abyazov been assigned to the police? Samson must get to the bottom of it all if he wants to solve the case and rescue Nadezhda.

In the tumultuous wake of the Russian Revolution, the young, recently orphaned Samson finds himself almost accidentally signed up to the new Soviet police force in Kyiv. His first case is a perplexing mystery involving a severed ear, a bone made of pure silver and a decidedly unusual suit tailored from fine English cloth. Luckily, Samson meets the ingenious Nadezhda, who aids him in his investigation.