Olga Romanova, a renowned human rights activist and journalist, has suddenly written a swashbuckling neo-noir. A political thriller with elements of mayhem, a coming-of-age drama with slash fan fiction. It would be typical yaoi (boys' love) if she limited herself to men, but no.

The characters are easily recognizable; you see their prototypes every day on your smartphone or computer screens, even if you don't want to see them. The action begins in 1974 in a Leningrad suburb, moves to Moscow, Kabul, Berlin, Dresden, St. Petersburg, and ends in the very near future.

All of this could have happened. Or maybe it really did.

A cheerful young woman from a Ukrainian village arrives at the very beginning of the era of stagnation to conquer the Northern capital. She strives to help people, she's smart, she's got a knack for it, she makes a dizzying career, crossing paths with the leading Soviet female cosmonaut, a rookie KGB officer posted to Dresden, gangsters, members of the CPSU Central Committee, ministers, spies, and assassins. Never feuding with anyone, never breaking any rules, by the end of her life she turns into a monster who has declared war on her homeland.