The Sign of Ten

Victorian England, Portsmouth. In Clarendon House, a "boarding house for gentlemen with shattered nerves," a new guest arrives - Charles Dodgson, already famous as Lewis Carroll, the author of "Alice in Wonderland," - and his nerves are very much shattered. Charles Dodgson has ominous dreams - his own characters prophesy blood, death, and catastrophes of an unclear nature to him and his acquaintances, and these predictions come true again and again. Who to turn to with such a mystery, if not to Mr. X, who understands the motives behind any human actions? This blind and mad hermit, a singer of rationality, the prototype of Sherlock Holmes, reveals terrible secrets without leaving the room, solely through the power of deduction - but how will his new confrontation with the "Union of Ten" end? José Carlos Somoza - a brilliant Spanish writer, whose novels have been translated into dozens of languages, winner of the "Golden Dagger" award and holder of many other literary awards, creator of multi-layered worlds where very scary things happen, author of fantastic, philosophical, historical thrillers, and horrors. In "The Sign of Ten," the sequel to "An Etude in Black," the infernally insightful Mr. X and his faithful, ironic, strong, and sensitive nurse Anne McCary return, and along with them, actors, props, and spectators of cruel underground theaters, well-known psychiatrists, and, of course, Arthur Conan Doyle are involved in an unpredictable intrigue. For the first time in Russian!