Literary fame beckons for Olga Pushkin when her self-help manual for hard-working women is taken on by a publisher. In the meantime, however, Olga still has a household to support, a hedgehog to feed, and railway tracks to maintain. But worst of all, her beloved sergeant of police, Vassily Marushkin, has been reunited with his long-lost wife Rozalina.

Matters aren't helped when Olga's boss forces her to babysit a special Romanov-themed murder mystery steam train doing the rounds of the local towns. Parked in a siding, the players deliver the first of several intended performances - only for a staged murder to become very real. Vassily starts a homicide investigation and is baffled when another murder follows on the heels of the first.

Olga has been banned from getting involved in the investigation but she soon makes discoveries that point towards something murch more worrying than murder alone. Further afield, a rival author emerges to steal Olga's crown, while back in Roslazny Olga begins to suspect that Rozalina might be hiding secrets of her own. With chaos striking, can Olga solve the murders, save her literary career, and settle Rozalina's identity before she loses Vassily forever?

'Quirky and colourful' The Times Crime Club