Case file 9787: "Meat Speculation" Samson Kolechko and his colleague Kholodnyi are sent to investigate the illegal sale of meat. How selling cuts of one's own livestock qualifies as a crime eludes the young investigator, but an order is an order, and, at the insistence of the Chekist secret police officer assigned to “reinforce” the Lybid police station, Samson vows to do his best. Yet just as Kolechko begins to dig into the case, a personal crisis nearly derails it. His live-in fiancée Nadezhda, is abducted by striking railway workers who object to her collecting information for the census. Complicating matters, the police station has been infiltrated by a mysterious thief, a deadly tram accident—which may have been premeditated—disrupts the city, and the culprit from Kolechko’s "silver bone" case may have resurfaced. Despite the rising danger, the detective cannot let himself be distracted from his dogged pursuit of the petty-fogging, seemingly mundane matter of the meat sellers, for