In the Far Eastern village of Chernovka, surrounded by taiga and swamps, an emergency occurs: a sawmill burns down, and in the morning bodies are found there, burned beyond recognition. A young investigator, Evgenia Rakitina, arrives from the district center. The local authorities and the villagers themselves are trying in every possible way to hush up the case, writing everything off as an accident, but Evgenia's professional instinct tells her that something is wrong here. And the deeper the heroine delves into this matter, the more she realizes that the people here are not only related to each other. Comparing the testimony of witnesses, she concludes that she will have to look for the solution to the mystery in the past.…