Death for death

Investigator Olshansky is in the process of divulging the secrets of adoption . The unknown calls the Krasnikov spouses and extorts money from them, threatening to inform their 15-year-old son that they adopted him. Soon the blackmailer is detained, and Olshansky learns from him that he received information about the secret of adoption from a certain Alexander Galaktionov, who, as it turns out, was killed. However, it is not clear where this information came from from Galaktionov himself. At the request of Olshansky, the criminal investigation officers involved in the investigation of the murder of Galaktionov help him answer this question. In the process, one of these employees, Anastasia Kamenskaya, comes to the attention of the murder committed by an employee of a research institute, Grigory Voitovich, and the subsequent suicide of the perpetrator. It turns out that it is associated with the murder of Galaktionov. Then, analyzing the statistics of violent crimes in Moscow using a computer, Kamenskaya discovers a strange picture: in one of the regions, the crime rate has sharply decreased, and in the neighboring region it has risen. Each of these areas on a map of Moscow forms a loop, and together they resemble the infinity sign (∞), the center of which is the research institute in which Grigory Voitovich worked. Trying to unravel this tangle, Kamenskaya gets into a deadly game.

“... faced with evil, often threatening herself, Kamenskaya finds the strength to resist him, overcome fear, and bring her business to the end. This power is largely determined by the moral position of Kamenskaya, which forms the ethics of the heroine, both in personal and in the professional sphere. In the novel Death for Death, she, refusing to participate in the work of a special brigade created to investigate a high-profile crime, utters a bitter and sharp monologue on the issue of the authorities' attitude to solving crimes committed against both famous and ordinary citizens. ” ^{[1 ]}

Alexandra Leontiev notes that “elements of criticism of the current state of society are also characteristic of a police novel. The topic of corruption and lack of professionalism in law enforcement and government is also required. In Marinina’s “Men's Games” and “Death for the Sake of Death”, the danger comes not only from crazy scientists and terrorist criminals, but also from the state security organs ” ^[2] .

The novel was filmed by director Yuri Moroz in the first part of the television series "Kamenskaya" .

Natalya Volkova writes that Marinina’s translations into Czech, including “Death for the sake of death”, “did not have a resounding success” ^[3] .