The protagonist of the novel is a professional revolutionary, deputy chairman of the Moscow Council of People's Militia Leonid Kosachevsky. He was entrusted with the search for national treasures stolen from the patriarchal sacristy in early 1918. An interesting investigation in itself does not exhaust the content of the book. Introducing readers to the little-studied pages of the history of the first months of Soviet power in Moscow, the author shows how the appearance of people of a new, socialist society was formed. The novel was awarded a prize at the All-Union Competition of the Union of Writers of the USSR and the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs for the best work of art about Soviet police workers.