The Creator's Mistake read online. Creator's mistake

* * *

God makes all things good, but man sticks his nose into them and turns them into evil.

Rousseau (1724–1804)

And if so, what is beauty and why do people deify it?

N. Zabolotsky

An excerpt from a green notebook

About five years ago, about a year after the death of my mother, I found in the rubble on the mezzanine an ancient suitcase made of brown leatherette with metal corners. He jumped back, as if he had been ready all these years, under my clumsy fingers an iron lock. I opened the lid and froze like a Soyuzmultfilm hero in front of Ali Baba's chest. Inside, lined with fallen clods of yellowish cotton wool, lay Soviet Christmas decorations: a real treasure. So far in color from modern Chinese consumer goods, they looked like soft emerald, orange, crimson fragile barrels. Silvery dust, once intended to represent New Year's frost, crumbled into cotton wool. Some were slightly beaten, revealing a hollow inside: a snow maiden on a clothespin, various-sized balls, a house under the snow, and even a pair of corn cobs - pistachio green and gold. I carefully sorted through them, remembering.

It's amazing how old objects deprived of life can throw us back into the past: I remembered that in addition to toys, the Christmas tree was decorated with thin foil tinsel and a “rain” that looked like a silver brush, and plastic Santa Claus was placed under the Christmas tree - the guardian of gifts that were invariably laid out for me adults on a cold morning on January 1st. I rolled around our large room in a communal apartment on a tricycle, getting in the way of my mother: she scurried from the kitchen into the room with plates of jelly that had yet to harden, Napoleon that had yet to be soaked. I remembered the sound of the shredder furiously shredding the cabbage in the wooden bowl, the thunder of the pans. The heat, saturated with the smells of pies, is from the kitchen, the cold, pulling with frosty ozone, is from the window. And, in order to finally finish me off with nostalgia for the irretrievable, the suitcase gave me its last jewel: in the depths, under a layer of cotton wool, there were several notebooks of 48 sheets, slightly yellowed from time to time. On the cover, where it is supposed to write a surname, it was carefully written in handwriting: "Diary". I swallowed, sorting through them - I didn’t even remember that I kept a diary, and even so insistently - there were four pieces of notebooks, and each was numbered with a thin pencil by my mother: 1, 2, 3, 4. Not daring to leaf through them at once, I put notebooks on the bedside table next to the bed: like evening reading.

In the evening it turned out that the diary was not real, but only a kind of "Reader's Diary", which was required of us at school. But I led him through the institute, inclusive: processing and summarizing the information received from the books. The last, fourth notebook was barely half filled, followed by blank sheets in a line with crossed-out margins. That day, putting my diaries aside and turning off the light, I thought about my mother for a long time, sorting through the memories of her, like those fragile Christmas decorations. How she, having painted her mouth, licked her lips with the usual cat grimace, “sharing” the scarlet greasy gloss with her lower lip, or the yellow-white stripes on her terry dressing gown, already faded, with protruding threads, bought from a gold-toothed gypsy somewhere at a stop on the way to the sea. Or here's another: the smell of strawberry soap, with which she shifted her things. So chemical and so dear.

And a few months later, our conversation happened. And I suddenly took that last notebook and a pen, always lying on the bedside table next to business papers. Opened on a blank page, towards the end. "Dear Mom! – I wrote and shuddered. The handwriting, corrupted by the computer keyboard, looked completely alien. – I don’t know what to do, and, fortunately, I can’t ask you anymore - you wouldn’t survive such a question. I will have to kill. I frivolously scattered the stones, and now the bitter harvest time has come. But if I become a murderer, I can no longer turn to you, even in my thoughts. So goodbye, mom. Now it's forever."

Alice

Sergei Nikolaevich briefly pressed the bell button to warn of his arrival, and immediately opened the door himself.

- I'm home! he shouted towards the second floor, expecting light steps from above, her appearance in a short silk dressing gown on the stairs. The jubilant clapping of hands is like a bird taking off. A quick search of long legs along the carpet path of the stairs down. Throw to his neck: "Beloved!" The beauty of fresh family traditions. No one had ever greeted Rudovsky with such joy, and all this pirouette around his arrival was what he hurried home for. But today it was quiet in the house - obviously, Alice lingered at the institute or at the theater. He shrugged his shoulders in disappointment: insulting, but nothing terrible. But there will be time to prepare a surprise for her - dinner. During the week, the housekeeper took care of the food. But today is Saturday - the housekeeper has a day off, which means he has to cook.

I never thought that a man could cook so deliciously! - Alice told him, sending another delicacy prepared by him into his beautifully contoured mouth.

And he, as always, could not get rid of the desire to shoot all this in a strong increase on the camera, like a commercial. Alice in general could be shot in high magnification without fear of a flaw. And everything was perceived as advertising: advertising of her shoulders, fingers, eyes, hair. Any jewel, any piece of clothing that he gave her did not adorn her, but on the contrary: was decorated with her. With it, you could shoot any genre: from a dumb comedy to a horror movie. The plot didn't matter when she appeared on the screen. No one else wanted to look. To think that such a woman loves him, lives next to him, sleeps with him - an elderly man, albeit with an interesting gray hair - seemed to Rudovsky a daily miracle. It doesn't matter that she lingers - the more pleasant it will be to meet her yourself, take off her raincoat and high-heeled shoes, massage her tired little foot and - feed her.

He took out of the bag a piece of tenderloin he was going to bake, Azerbaijani tomatoes, generous bunches of regan and cilantro, red sweet onions, new potatoes. He nodded in satisfaction. It would be necessary to change clothes: it was not convenient to cook in a suit. Rudovsky rinsed his hands, dried them hastily with a kitchen towel, and went upstairs.

In the room, throwing open the doors of the dressing room, he quickly chose a T-shirt and jeans: fashionable, with youthful holes on the knees - a tribute to his young wife. He hung up his suit, tossed his shirt into the laundry basket without looking. Glancing in the mirror, he ran a large hand through his hair, which was beginning to turn gray, but still thick. And he froze - his feet stuck out on a snow-white carpet behind a huge bed. Those same "advertising" small feet with a red pedicure, which he so liked to put on his palm. "Alice!" he shouted, instantly frightened to the point of fainting. And, rushing towards her, he stumbled on the carpet, collapsed at his feet - his feet were warm, for a second it seemed to him that everything was in order, well, almost everything, and, clasping them, he found the strength to raise his head and look ... where a burgundy stain has spread out on a pink silk dressing gown.

* * *

The body was taken away, and he felt a strange relief and, at the same time, an acute longing. The house is empty forever. He sat on the couch, trying to ignore the blood stains on his jeans. He was sedated and he was calm. Absentmindedly, he watched how the foliage gradually darkened in the depths of the garden, surrounding the birch trunks, light even in the twilight, in a cloud. The color cinema of his life before his eyes turned into black and white. Opposite him, in the chair that he usually occupied himself (and Alice climbed up on the sofa, leafing through glossy magazine pictures), sat a young girl who looked only a couple of years older than Alice. He automatically assessed her face with a professional look - unmade, wide cheekbones: something between Cate Blanchett and Maria Mironova. It would be necessary to work on it - pluck the eyebrows, apply makeup ... But Alice did not need any of this. She was so beautiful - my heart sank. It seemed that his every thought, like a goat tied to a peg, making a circle, always returned to her. He noticed that the girl was trying to look around imperceptibly, and nodded to himself. The house was his luck, the main trophy, until Alice appeared. Good - only two floors flowing into one another large spaces. The walls are painted in natural colors: terracotta, beige, pearl gray. And huge windows.

“Olya wanted the house to dissolve in the surrounding landscape, merge with it,” he said aloud, and the girl froze. Judging by the bewildered expression on his face, I thought he mixed up the names. “Olya is my first wife,” Rudovsky explained.

- You're divorced? The girl tensed up a little.

"I'm a widower," he answered curtly, and he winced at the realization that he had been a widower twice already. And he quickly continued: - Olya had an accident on ice, lost control of the car. We lived with her in this house for eight years. And six months - with Alice.

Tell me about your wife, please. - The girl was clearly embarrassed by her perseverance. She didn't seem to understand: he wanted to talk about Alice. I was just afraid to choke on words and tears, but if she insists ...

“I don’t know who could wish her harm,” he began with a banality. But can't banality be true? - Some kind of absurdity. Obviously, they wanted to rob us, the thief managed to lull her vigilance. It's not difficult - Alice is trusting, like a child. Friendly to the world, although from a very problematic family. In the nineties, when she was born, they almost begged. Rudovsky swallowed. The voice trembled, but did not break - already thank God. - Parents were against her going to the theater. But Alice insisted, and, of course, they immediately took her. Potemushkin, the director, and I looked after her when we were going to shoot a film based on Turgenev. Alice was barely nineteen then. You couldn't take your eyes off her. Then ... - he sighed - I took her to all the projects that I shot. In principle, she could do nothing in the frame, but she is also a great actress. And his wife…” He turned back to the window, to look at the thin birch trunks under the bright June sky, exhaled, restrained his sobs. I gave myself half a minute to level my voice.

- You are probably thinking, what a hackneyed story for today - a young girl, a husband, twice her age? He chuckled, looking at the girl from Petrovka. She looked at him with calm attention. - But we had true love, and tenderness, and understanding, when no words are needed. They were going to make four children - with Olya I did not have children. At first she took care of the figure, and then ... - He waved his hand. “And Alice didn’t care about the figure. She wanted to abandon the projects that she was offered after "Spring Waters" - just to spend more time with me. I was against it - I didn’t want to seem like Koshchei, languishing over his treasure, an aging jealous one ... And who should be jealous of?

“I understand,” the girl nodded, as if she really could understand something. And then, looking at her notes, she asked: “Alice still did charity work, didn’t she?”

- And how did you manage? Rudovsky shook his head. - I transferred all my fees to this fund. She always ran there, knocked something out, played with children in hospitals ...

Rudovsky nodded at the photograph standing on the coffee table: Alice, in a lace dress, hugging a child crouching in an armchair. The boy's small wrinkled face contrasted almost indecently with Alisin's. He turned away. The wretched boy from the photograph was alive, and his Alice ... The girl, thank God, realized that it was time to take her leave. I got up and took my bag.

– Thank you very much for your time.

- My pleasure. He rose heavily from the couch and added, once again banal, “This is your job.

He followed her into the hallway - through the open door of the kitchen, a still life of the cook was visible: meat, tomatoes, cilantro. A couple of hours ago, he wanted to cook dinner, and now his life is over. Rudovsky turned away, forcing himself to look at the fair-haired top of the operative: should she tell her notebook about Alisina? And I decided it wasn't worth it. Those incomprehensible figures clearly have nothing to do with the murder, but then why? And he gallantly opened the heavy front door for her. The girl turned around: her brows were furrowed, she looked with pity.

“Are you sure you don’t want to call someone from the family so as not to be left alone?”

She didn't understand anything.

“Alice was my family,” he said, “and no matter who you call, I’m still alone. You know, - he chuckled, - I was selfishly glad that she was younger than me, because I was sure that Alice would bury me, she would hold my hand in the last days, and I would not have to live without her. Sorry.

And, unable to stand it, he slammed the heavy door right in front of her nose.

Andrey

Andrei listened to the Machine's speech about great and pure love, which visited the producer Rudovsky, forty-eight years old, with some distrust. But Masha was adamant: there was such a wave of despair from Rudovsky that I wanted to leave this house as soon as possible. It was a pity for the girl, but it turned out to be even more pitiful for this big half-gray man.

“I didn’t know you were so sentimental,” he teased her, but not much. He himself was sentimental when it came to Masha. “So the first suspect, the husband, is definitely not involved?”

“No one knows for sure,” Masha remarked philosophically, “but it’s still unlikely.

– Lover?

“My husband says no,” Masha shrugged her shoulders. And she herself nodded, saying, I know, I know. But the husband is always the last to know.

- Exactly. Andrey punched her on the nose. - Let's split up: I'll go to the theater, and you call ... - He looked at the notes: - To the Save a Life charity foundation.

Would you like to get some backstage air? Masha smiled. – To see actresses in a negligee?

But Andrei did not even consider it necessary to respond to an unconditional provocation: he grabbed Masha in an armful, kissed her strictly so, in a comradely manner, on the lips (it’s still great that she doesn’t put on makeup) and went to the Theater. Chekhov.

* * *

The backstage air turned out to be dusty, and the backstage view turned out to be dreary. The theater, located in one of the Arbat lanes, was clearly on its last legs: worn out old chairs, balls of dust in the corners, dried up parquet.

- He is a genius! - the administrator announced to him, a lady of about fifty, with a voluminous chest, hung with voluminous amber beads. – He will bring our theater to a new level!

And she waved her hand in the air in large silver rings with malachite: either she was dispersing the virtual smoke of cigarettes, or the suspicions of the operative who had come about the slow dying of the Russian Melpomene.

- He already has two international awards, plus the Golden Mask and the Golden Harlequin! You know, he takes the Russian classics, the same Ostrovsky, and turns it inside out. Spectators come out shocked, agitated by art ...

Andrey could not stand it on the "disturbed":

- So, director Sarkelov came to your theater recently and immediately invited Alisa Kanunnikova to the main female roles?

- And then you did not guess! The lady's enthusiasm knew no bounds. - Alexey has his own, author's vision. The point was to let Alice express herself in character roles that were not typical for her. After all, what is offered to such a girl? And the administrator smiled slyly.

- What? - Andrey, far from Melpomene, could not find what to answer.

- Ingenue, a young beauty - Juliet, for example. And with Alyosha, she played in heavy make-up that disfigured her, and then gradually, as it were, revealed her true face. Like a soul, you know? And her soul was beautiful...

- It's clear. Andrey rubbed the bridge of his nose. - And what kind of relationship, besides professional, did Alice have with Sarkelov?

- None! - the administrator was indignant, even turned pale. - Always looking for some kind of nasty things. Talented young people, everyone has their own personal life ... Alice, by the way, is married! Alexei also ... Relationships!

The lady raised a thinly plucked eyebrow on her slightly swollen face, folded her large hands on the scratched tabletop:

- I can't tell you that. He is not familiar with me, you know.

* * *

Leaving the administrator's office, Andrey poked at random into the first ajar door. The small room smelled of mothballs and old wool. To the right of the entrance stood a closet, on it lay a mountain of hats: felt hats with brim, straw hats with ribbons, cocked hats with feathers. Hangers with suits lined up in several rows all the way to the farthest wall. A caftan with a snow-white jabot caught sight of Andrei. In the back, a girl in a black noodle sweater sat with her back to him. Her golden hair fell in curls to the middle of her slender back. When she turned around, Andrei grunted: the "girl" was already in her fifties. The girlish hairstyle, paradoxically, rather aged her. The face under the layer of powder seemed doll-like, almost inanimate, but when asked about the relationship of the chief director of the theater, it instantly began to move.

– Ha! Me too, open secret! Some woman from the Ministry of Culture! - The costume designer trembled with blond curls. - They wanted to close our almshouse: the halls are empty, the actors are preparing for the performance through their sleeves, the words - and they do not teach! So at first the rumor got around: we were giving the premises for some office space, and then this our grasshopper galloped up - Alyoshka Sarkelov. Then the conversations began, they say, we will not let art perish! Let's revive the theatre! Reviving is now a fashionable thing, you know. At first we destroyed everything possible, and now we are trying to revive it, ugh! And she spat quite naturally.

“Still, in the theater, even costumers are not devoid of a kind of acting talent,” Andrey chuckled to himself. And the costume designer triumphantly finished:

- Well, he brought this damn girl with him, obviously, as a symbol of the Renaissance.

Andrei nodded, and the door suddenly swung open, and a tall, thin young man with a long face appeared on the threshold.

- Maya Alexandrovna! - he began and stopped when he saw Andrei.

- And here he is. Appeared, not dusty! - the dresser said to Andrey out of the corner of her mouth and broke into a honeyed smile: - Alexey Valeryevich, then the investigator came from Petrovka. Regarding the murder of our Alice.

“Senior detective captain Yakovlev,” Andrey corrected her. - Where can we talk to you?

Heraclius

“Still,” thought Heraclius, parking the car, “a strange story.”

Strange call. A strange voice - sometimes squeaky, sometimes bass. As if someone clumsily tries to change his voice. And the fact that this person knows about Heraclius is also strange. In vain he agreed to a meeting. He froze for a second before opening the car door, looked at a piece of faded, not yet filled with blue sky, barely visible from behind the skyscrapers of Moscow City. “Yes, and such an unreal early time ...” Irakli yawned, pulled himself out of the low sports car, stretched sweetly. It was fresh outside, even the air still did not smell, as usual, of gasoline. - Come on. Meet this dude. Probably a journalist. He dug up an ancient story and is trying to blackmail him. Kindergarten. Attacked the wrong one. Irakli walked quickly to the Business Center. I nodded to the guard at the entrance, called the elevator. A huge mirror reflected a broad-shouldered figure in gray overalls - a cross between a tracksuit and pajamas: a hood covered his head, allowing you to go for a morning run and be unrecognized, on his feet soft leather sneakers. Stylish and cozy. Irakli took out his mobile phone and took a selfie - "liftoluk". While I got to the right, last floor, I managed to post a photo on Instagram with the inscription: “In a healthy body, a healthy “Wow!”.

The doors opened and he put his hood back on.

"They're waiting for me," he told the sleeping waiter.

“They haven’t arrived yet,” the garcon replied, trying to hold back a yawn.

Irakli chose a table in the far corner. From the panoramic window overlooking the terrace, a view of the metropolitan skyscrapers unbearably shining in the morning sun opened up.

“Double espresso,” he tossed to the waiter and lounged in his chair, looking around. Not a soul. The cafe served the employees of the business center - during the day this place will not be overcrowded. In the evening, around five, people also crowded to have a drink, watch football or flirt with a colleague. But at six in the morning there was no one here, and Heraclius nodded to himself. Unknown is clearly not a fool. Here, no one will bother them.

“Good morning,” he heard behind him and turned around sharply. Nearby stood a tall, red-bearded man in a cap and light raincoat.

Heraclius quickly scanned him with his eyes - from brown boots to the collar of a black sweater sticking out from under his cloak. He sniffed the air: a slight smell of naphthalene emanated from the unknown. The waiter came over and placed a thimble of espresso in front of Heraclius, and a large cup of cappuccino in front of the lanky one.

“Be kind, make it so that no one bothers us,” the stranger said in a calm voice to the sleepy Chaldean. And he instantly vanished.

“He is not a journalist at all,” Irakli realized, again stealthily looking at the man opposite. Something was wrong. Clothes, originally from the 80s, clearly taken out of the depths of the wardrobe to meet him, a bushy red beard, and eyebrows and eyelashes are dark. Irakli shuddered. “What the hell?”

Why do you need a false beard? he asked, looking straight into the man's brown and green eyes.

He smiled - his teeth were crooked.

- Wow, how did you declassify me. This,” he lightly touched his beard, as if he was afraid that it would peel off, “not even for me, but for you. You are a famous person. Why ... - the unknown thought, looking for words, - to compromise you?

“I'm not a girl,” Irakli frowned and pushed his empty cup away from him. “It wasn't worth the trouble.

But the man did not answer: he drank cappuccino in small sips and carefully looked at Heraclius. The look was strange. For some reason, Irakli remembered his friend that he kept a nursery of thoroughbred Rottweilers in the Moscow region. Once he was forced to shoot one of his best producers - the handsome Sigmund. Ziggy, as his friend called him, got rabies. Last fall, Heraclius watched as a friend raised a gun with an unwavering hand and ... What kind of nonsense gets into your head?

“On the phone, you said you had some very important information,” he said, looking nervous for some reason.

- Not here. Red finished his cappuccino and stood up.

Heraclius looked at him doubtfully.

- There's no one here.

- There are cameras. And there are people who can read lips, - the unknown person chuckled. - I do not care. But if any of this leaks to the press, your career is over.

Heraclius got up. Damn him! We need to get this over with quickly. The man pushed the door to the terrace. Irakli went out and sighed: it's beautiful after all. Huge skyscrapers burn with golden fire. A little further on, the Moskva River sparkles like a silvery ribbon. Below, very tiny, scurry about cars - the noise of a big city. And up here, it's quiet. Only very high. Heraclius cautiously approached the transparent plastic fence.

- Here. The man called him a little to the left. – Look, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior is perfectly visible from the south side!

"What's the difference?" thought Irakli, but obediently approached.

And in the next second, a lanky man in a light raincoat knocked out the plastic sheet of the fence with an instant gesture and pushed it down with force. Irakli let out a short cry of surprise, shocking the early cleaners a couple of floors below, and the next drawling cry was already drowned in the Moscow morning noise.

And a man in a light raincoat went back inside the cafe, finished his last sip of a slightly warm cappuccino, slightly pulled up his sleeve, which was short in the current fashion, and saw, right under the large bone button on the cuff, a tiny dark brown speck. Blood. Ever since last time. He chuckled: the cloak had almost become his uniform. And this is wrong. It will have to be burned, inventing new equipment for the future.

He put a thousand-ruble note under his cup and calmly walked to the elevator.

The waiter, dozing off on a chair behind the bar, did not even notice how he was left alone.

Moscow. Nowadays. A string of unexplained murders take place in the capital. The victims did not know each other, worked in completely different industries, and had no common ground. The investigation managed to connect the dead only on one basis - all the victims were extremely good-looking. Who and why started hunting for beautiful people - an extravagant maniac or a person who imagines himself the arbiter of destinies, or maybe a malicious envious man is operating in the city? In her novel The Creator's Error, Daria Desombre focuses not only on finding an answer to this question. By the way, only at the very end of the investigation of terrible crimes, the secret of the main villain of the detective will be revealed, but the author's narration itself will make you eagerly taste each next chapter, enjoying the light literary style, intricate plot and intellectual background ..

Daria Desombre in the book "The Mistake of the Creator" "dropped" deeper and went beyond the boundaries of the detective genre. What makes her work special is its scientific support and factual content. In this story, the reader will have to replenish his stock of knowledge with facts from the field of eugenics, and the famously twisted plot will allow you to enjoy a well-thought-out and written detective story, which, in addition to everything, makes you think about many truths of being.

The main characters are Maria Karavay and Andrey Yakovlev. Partners are on the case of the mysterious murders of beautiful people. There is no direct evidence, all evidence is circumstantial, the real criminal remains at large when an innocent person sits in the dock and assures the investigation of his guilt. The nature of the operatives does not allow Maria and Andrey to just leave this case. In the course of an independent investigation, they find the central link in the events - the origins of the crime go deep into decades, starting in the 90s. Conceived then as good, today the tragic events have taken an unexpected turn, so unexpected that it is still unknown how many more people should die, and who will be the next victim of a carefully planned plot. You can listen to the audiobook in mp3, read The Creator's Mistake online or download it for free in fb2, epub and pdf on KnigoPoisk.

In the detective story "Creator's Error" Daria Dezombre fit several storylines that complement each other. The story turned out to be voluminous, not heaped up with actors and scientific facts - a fine line is observed between detective features, science fiction and non-fiction.

The plot is intriguing and compelling to read. With each new main reader more and more drawn into the maelstrom of events, and it is paradoxical that all his guesses about the identity of the criminal will be refuted by the author in the finale.

Do you think that you can not let yourself be so cleverly deceived? Daria Desombre will prove otherwise by allowing you to spend an exciting evening with her interesting characters. Reviews and reviews about the book.

DOWNLOAD FREE BOOK "Creator's Mistake"

Marivanna (that is, I) does just fine without the guidance of one of her friends, if you give her a good kick. Once upon a time, a friend gave me a good kick in the direction of Daria Desombre's debut novel "The Ghost of Heavenly Jerusalem" - and then everything went like clockwork. Despite the fact that in the first book I was frankly disappointed with the image of the main villain and did not find any Dan Brown (still for the better), everything else in Desombre was extremely pleasant, and I immediately realized that I would only write better, if only popularity will not turn your head.
Until, apparently, it did not turn.
In the fourth book in a row, Desombre moved away from art and took up the education of the reader in scientific fields, which is very commendable. This time the focus was on the science of genetics, and the chapters on crimes and their investigations are interspersed with references to the history of this scientific direction. I was a little disappointed that almost no attention is paid to the actual scientific aspect - the focus is on the history of genetics, and strictly in a social and humanistic context. And more specifically, it's still about eugenics - and how the idea of creating an ideal person was refracted at different times.
From this scientific and historical part, I didn’t learn so much new - although I admit that compositionally, as a “substrate” for the main action, it is needed in the book.
Retelling the plot introductory is definitely a spoiler, so I’ll say one thing about the plot: what the author is hinting at with his plot introductory and historical references, it becomes clear pretty quickly, but who the killer is, nevermind. A real intrigue, quite unexpected for Desombre's books! I honestly could not fully figure out what happens to me infrequently, so the author is awesome.
I was also once again amazed at how well Desombra succeeded in absolutely seemingly optional love lines in a detective story. I can’t say that the book is built on these very love lines and will fail without them, but it is definitely more beautiful with them.
I highly recommend it to everyone who has never taken up Desombre's books, you can start right with this one, "The Creator's Mistake" in this sense is a much more successful start than the previous "The Secret of Dutch Tiles".

And a small announcement for those who followed the tandem of Yakovlev and Karavay the previous three books:
- Ranevskaya is alive and well, what will happen to him?
- But the relationship between Andrei and Masha passed the test of the wardrobe (spoiler - not everyone survived, in the wardrobe for sure);
- For the first time after the death of her father, Loaf put on something non-black - and this even helped her in the investigation (shock video download without SMS);
- Loaf, Yakovlev, all of Petrovka and every reader for the first time (most likely) will encounter live action role-playing games. And here, too, there will be casualties, including among the civilian population. I hope the average reader of Daria Desombre is smart enough not to extrapolate artistic experience to real life in its entirety.

Investigations by Maria Karavay - 4

God makes all things good, but man sticks his nose into them and turns them into evil.

And if so, what is beauty and why do people deify it?

An excerpt from a green notebook

It's amazing how old objects deprived of life can throw us back into the past: I remembered that in addition to toys, the Christmas tree was decorated with thin foil tinsel and a "rain" that looked like a silver brush, and plastic Santa Claus was placed under the Christmas tree - the guardian of gifts that were invariably laid out for me adults on a cold morning on January 1st. I rolled around our large room in a communal apartment on a tricycle, getting in the way of my mother: she scurried from the kitchen into the room with plates of jelly that had yet to harden, Napoleon that had yet to be soaked. I remembered the sound of the shredder furiously shredding the cabbage in the wooden bowl, the thunder of the pans. The heat, saturated with the smells of pies, comes from the kitchen; the cold, pulling with frosty ozone, comes from the window. And, in order to finally finish me off with nostalgia for the irretrievable, the suitcase gave me its last jewel: in the depths, under a layer of cotton wool, there were several notebooks of 48 sheets, slightly yellowed from time to time. On the cover, where it is supposed to write a surname, it was carefully written in handwriting: "Diary". I swallowed, sorting through them - I didn’t even remember that I kept a diary, and even so insistently - there were four pieces of notebooks, and each was numbered with a thin pencil by my mother: 1, 2, 3, 4. Not daring to leaf through them at once, I put notebooks on the bedside table next to the bed: like evening reading.

Daria Desombre

The Creator's Mistake

God makes all things good, but man sticks his nose into them and turns them into evil.

Rousseau (1724–1804)

And if so, what is beauty and why do people deify it?

N. Zabolotsky

An excerpt from a green notebook

It's amazing how old objects deprived of life can throw us back into the past: I remembered that in addition to toys, the Christmas tree was decorated with thin foil tinsel and a "rain" that looked like a silver brush, and a plastic Santa Claus was placed under the Christmas tree - the guardian of gifts that were invariably laid out for me adults on a cold morning on January 1st. I rolled around our large room in a communal apartment on a tricycle, getting in the way of my mother: she scurried from the kitchen into the room with plates of jelly that had yet to harden, Napoleon that had yet to be soaked. I remembered the sound of the shredder furiously shredding the cabbage in the wooden bowl, the thunder of the pans. The heat, saturated with the smells of pies, is from the kitchen, the cold, pulling with frosty ozone, is from the window. And, in order to finally finish me off with nostalgia for the irretrievable, the suitcase gave me its last jewel: in the depths, under a layer of cotton wool, there were several notebooks of 48 sheets, slightly yellowed from time to time. On the cover, where it is supposed to write a surname, it was carefully written in handwriting: "Diary". I swallowed, sorting through them - I didn’t even remember that I kept a diary, and even so insistently - there were four pieces of notebooks, and each was numbered with a thin pencil by my mother: 1, 2, 3, 4. Not daring to leaf through them at once, I put notebooks on the bedside table next to the bed: like evening reading.

And a few months later, our conversation happened. And I suddenly took that last notebook and a pen, always lying on the bedside table next to business papers. Opened on a blank page, towards the end. "Dear Mom! - I wrote and shuddered. The handwriting, corrupted by the computer keyboard, looked completely alien. - I do not know what to do, and, fortunately, I can no longer ask you - you would not survive such a question. I will have to kill. I frivolously scattered the stones, and now the bitter harvest time has come. But if I become a murderer, I can no longer turn to you, even in my thoughts. So goodbye, mom. Now it's forever."

Sergei Nikolaevich briefly pressed the bell button to warn of his arrival, and immediately opened the door himself.

I'm home! he shouted towards the second floor, expecting light steps from above, her appearance in a short silk robe on the stairs. The jubilant clapping of hands is like a bird taking off. A quick search of long legs along the carpet path of the stairs down. Throw to his neck: "Beloved!" The beauty of fresh family traditions. No one had ever greeted Rudovsky with such joy, and all this pirouette around his arrival was what he hurried home for. But today it was quiet in the house - obviously, Alice lingered at the institute or at the theater. He shrugged his shoulders in disappointment: insulting, but nothing terrible. But there will be time to prepare a surprise for her - dinner. During the week, the housekeeper took care of the food. But today is Saturday - the housekeeper has a day off, which means he has to cook.

I never thought that a man could cook so delicious! - Alice told him, sending another delicacy prepared by him into his beautifully contoured mouth.

And he, as always, could not get rid of the desire to shoot all this in a strong increase on the camera, like a commercial. Alice in general could be shot in high magnification without fear of a flaw. And everything was perceived as advertising: advertising of her shoulders, fingers, eyes, hair. Any jewel, any piece of clothing that he gave her did not adorn her, but on the contrary: was decorated - by her. With it, you could shoot any genre: from a dumb comedy to a horror movie. The plot didn't matter when she appeared on the screen. No one else wanted to look. To think that such a woman loves him, lives next to him, sleeps with him - an elderly man, albeit with an interesting gray hair - seemed to Rudovsky a daily miracle. It doesn't matter that she lingers - the more pleasant it will be to meet her yourself, take off her cloak and high-heeled shoes, massage her tired little foot and - feed her.

* * *

The body was taken away, and he felt a strange relief and, at the same time, an acute longing. The house is empty forever. He sat on the couch, trying to ignore the blood stains on his jeans. He was sedated and he was calm. Absentmindedly, he watched how the foliage gradually darkened in the depths of the garden, surrounding the birch trunks, light even in the twilight, in a cloud. The color cinema of his life before his eyes turned into black and white. Opposite him, in the chair that he usually occupied himself (and Alice climbed up on the sofa, leafing through glossy magazine pictures), sat a young girl who looked only a couple of years older than Alice. He automatically assessed her face with a professional look - unpainted, wide-cheeked: something between Cate Blanchett and Maria Mironova. It would be necessary to work on him - to pluck his eyebrows, apply makeup ... But Alice did not need any of this. She was so beautiful - my heart sank. It seemed that his every thought, like a goat tied to a peg, making a circle, always returned to her. He noticed that the girl was trying to look around imperceptibly, and nodded to himself. The house was his luck, the main trophy, until Alice appeared. Good - only two floors flowing into one another large spaces. The walls are painted in natural colors: terracotta, beige, pearl gray. And huge windows.

Olya wanted the house to dissolve in the surrounding landscape, merge with it, - he said aloud, and the girl froze. Judging by the bewildered expression on his face, I thought he mixed up the names. “Olya is my first wife,” Rudovsky explained.

You're divorced? The girl tensed up a little.

I'm a widower, he replied curtly, and he winced at the realization that he had been a widower twice already. And quickly continued: - Olya had an accident in ice, lost control of the car. We lived with her in this house for eight years. And six months - with Alice.

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