"Murder in the Library" by Emil Braginsky and Eldar Ryazanov, summary Automatic translate

This book is an ironic detective story, written in 1966. This engaging text turned out to be the only joint film adaptation of the celebrated co-authors, which Soviet censors categorically forbade from being adapted for the screen. The writers caustically satirize the nomenklatura, the education system, and the clichés of the crime genre. The authors skillfully weave fantastical motifs into the investigation of the death of a high-ranking scientist.

Night call

The story begins with a strange phone call. At precisely midnight, an unknown voice awakens investigator Georgy Borisovich Yachmenev. The voice claims to be a ghost. It calmly declares that it murdered Academician Sergei Ivanovich Zubarev right in the library of the Academy of School Sciences. The motive for the crime is retribution for the scientist’s lack of scruples. A female voice in the background demands that the body be removed quickly, briefly saying, "Georgy, have the dead man removed!" Yachmenev dismisses the late-night conversation as a silly prank.

An investigator suffers from insomnia. His only daughter, Anya, is getting married. The thought of a stranger in the house drives her father to distraction. Another call comes at four in the morning. His assistant, Zinovy Fomin, reports the discovery of Zubarev’s body. Yachmenev brews coffee, pondering the deceased’s identity. The academician was a renowned humanities scholar. His wife scolds Georgy Borisovich for ruining their trip to the Wedding Palace. The detective promises to make it to his daughter’s wedding ceremony.

Crime scene examination

Yachmenev arrives at an old mansion on Krivobedenny Lane. His second assistant, Ivan Shalyto, meets him on the dark street. A junior detective secretly maintains surveillance from a phone booth in the pouring rain. Inside the building, Yachmenev goes up to the library and speaks with Zinovy Fomin. It turns out that Zubarev was hit on the head with a blunt object. The detectives immediately rule out robbery due to the complete safety of his valuables.

A vast evidence base — a scattering of strange clues — was left at the crime scene. A man’s glasses, a cheap plastic cameo, and a checkered handkerchief stained with lipstick lay scattered on the soft carpet. A travel document to Kuibyshev and a torn manuscript lay nearby. A ham sausage weighing approximately 390 grams disappeared from a grocery bag, but the food was later found outside the window. Fomin rushed to conclusions. Yachmenev took a different approach. The experienced detective sought out innocent people so that the guilty would reveal themselves.

The investigator interrogates the commandant, Nadezhda Dmitrievna. The stern elderly woman is drinking tea and reading a historical novel by Maurice Druon. She recounts historical facts about her father’s ownership of the mansion before the Revolution. Nadezhda Dmitrievna denies the existence of family ghosts, but readily jokes about the benevolent spirits of her acquaintances, the Beloselsky-Belozerov princes. Yachmenev takes a genuine liking to her. The old woman speaks ill of Zubarev, outright calling him a boor.

Interrogation of suspects

Junior research fellow Anton Varlamov confidently enters the library. Yachmenev hands him a checkered handkerchief. Anton makes no attempt to hide his hatred for the academician. He confesses to the investigator that Zubarev rejected his book. The young scholar bravados and suggests arresting him. Then a grief-stricken widow, Maria Nikitichna, appears. The woman is crying, but mourning only her dog. The dog, named Athos, was meant to receive the sausage left near the corpse. The widow takes the foreign-made string bag and leaves. The detective notices a psychological undercurrent in the woman’s behavior.

An antique porcelain vase falls from a tall bookcase. The heavy object misses the investigator’s head by a few millimeters and shatters. Fomin speculates about a secret underground passage. Yachmenev walks down the hallway and finds Kirill Petrovich Rostovsky, the library’s chief curator, in the restroom. The gray-haired man, dressed in an elegant suit, is kneeling on the stone floor, begging the justice system to spare him.

It turns out that Rostovsky wrote all the scientific papers for the murdered academic. The ticket to Kuibyshev actually belongs to the librarian. Yachmenev unmistakably identifies the custodian’s overnight stay at the Kazan Station by his scent. Rostovsky’s wife kicked him out of the house for gambling debts and horse racing losses.

Investigation at school

The investigator decides to personally verify the alibi of literature teacher Alla Grigoryevna. During class, Yachmenev listens to the students’ answers about the novel "Eugene Onegin." The students give boring answers, reading long sentences from the textbook. The troubled teenager Boroznin brazenly argues with the teacher, rejecting the classic interpretations of Pushkin’s Tatyana’s actions. After the bell rings, Georgy Borisovich returns the plastic cameo to Alla. The beautiful teacher admits to visiting the library at night with Anton. The couple saw a dead body and fled the crime scene in a panic.

Yachmenev returns to the academy building. Evidence is being systematically destroyed — an unknown person is once again tearing apart the manuscript about Ivan the Terrible, which had been glued together by forensic experts. Shalyto’s assistant left his guard post for only two and a half minutes to get a bun. Georgy Borisovich takes Ivan’s service pistol and cautiously enters the building.

A low, ominous chuckle echoes through the library. The investigator, startled, runs out into the hallway, and grabs a plump man. The man in custody turns out to be Yuri Konstantinovich Kuznetsov. A doctor of science, he’s eyeing the murdered boss’s administrative post. Kuznetsov retrieves the forgotten glasses. He explains that the breach of the perimeter was a search for materials for a new concept.

Encounter with mysticism

The evidence collection leads to a dead end. Yachmenev notices mystical changes in the painting. A portrait of Empress Catherine the Great periodically hangs upside down. A copy of Repin’s painting constantly skews. Georgy Borisovich leaves for his daughter’s wedding. During the ceremony, the investigator deduces the killer’s identity. The man abandons the ceremony and rushes back to Krivobedrenny Lane.

The boss gives his assistants pointless archival assignments. Fomin leaves to look for Catherine the Great’s deed of gift. Shalyto goes to check Onegin’s historical walking routes. Left alone, Yachmenev conducts an investigative experiment by reading a torn manuscript. The crystal chandelier goes out. The ghosts knock the detective to the floor, tie his hands, gag him with paper, and hide him behind a heavy painting frame. Shalyto returns, frees Yachmenev and departs for the literary archive.

Court of Ghosts

Yachmenev locks the wooden door. The officer turns off the light and orders the suspects to emerge from their hiding place. Ivan the Terrible, Catherine the Great, and Eugene Onegin materialize from old paintings. The canvas occupants tell the investigator about library life, reading the latest newspapers, and observing the decline of social morals.

Onegin is outraged by the contents of the school textbooks. The Soviet system dismisses the nobleman as a common parasite. Catherine is furious at having her name removed from the curriculum. Ivan the Terrible picks up a book and reads Zubarev’s laudatory lines. The academician had previously praised the tsar for his firm hand. In his new manuscript, the scholar cowardly called the autocrat a tyrant and a maniac.

The ghosts held a comradely trial of the opportunist. Onegin acted as judge, and the monarchs acted as assessors. The company executed Zubarev for his lack of principles. Yachmenev engaged in a heated argument with the sovereign, openly declaring, "You are a bandit, Your Royal Majesty!" Ivan the Terrible did not forgive such insults. The enraged monarch drew his heavy staff and struck the investigator on the head.

Georgy Borisovich regains consciousness on the floor. Onegin pours cool water from a decanter on the detective’s face. Pushkin’s hero gives the detective an autograph on the official interrogation report. The ghosts peacefully return to the works of art. The investigator descends into the vestibule and looks in the mirror. The officer sees his own head completely gray and bald.

Georgy Borisovich gathers all the academy staff. He announces to his colleagues that Ivan the Terrible murdered Zubarev in a secret conspiracy with Catherine II. The scholars remain silent, mistaking these words for sudden, stress-induced madness. Yachmenev strongly advises those present to exercise caution with historical research. He leaves the mansion, slowly walking away in the cold autumn rain. A month and a half later, a midnight phone call awakens the detective. An unfamiliar ghost reports the murder of a film director.