After five years spent abroad building up a business as something of a private investigator, the handsome, stuttering Fandorin is back in Moscow, and in for a case which entangles him with the highest echelons of Romanov royalty. Grand Duke Georgii Alexandrovich arrives in Moscow with three of his children for the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II, fated to become the last Emperor of Russia. During an afternoon stroll in the park Georgii's daughter Xenia...