"Blood of the Unborn" by Polina Dashkova, summary

This action-packed detective novel was written in 1996. It marked the author’s debut in the detective genre, revealing a recurring theme in her work: the clash of ordinary people with cruel shadowy structures. The story centers on an illegal business producing expensive anti-aging drugs from the tissue of late human embryos.

Escape from the Lesnogorsk hospital

Thirty-five-year-old Elena Polyanskaya, a journalist for the Moscow publication Smart, is expecting her first child. At twenty-six weeks of pregnancy, during a routine ultrasound, elderly doctor Dmitry Kurochkin unexpectedly announces the intrauterine death of the fetus. The doctor administers a sedative to the confused patient. The woman loses consciousness.

Waking up in a ward at a provincial hospital in the city of Lesnogorsk, Elena overhears a conversation between two nurses. Student intern Valentina Shcherbakova listens to her stomach with a stethoscope and insists the baby is alive and well. Nurse Oksana, however, prepares the woman for induction of labor under the direct orders of department head Amalia Zotova.

Realizing the mortal danger, Elena takes advantage of the staff’s temporary absence. She grabs her purse, runs out the back exit, and hides in the hospital basement. Resident Boris Simakov discovers the patient is missing, expresses outrage at the criminal actions to Zotova, and resigns. The head of the department summons three of her thugs to search for the fugitive and burns Polyanskaya’s medical record.

Elena manages to spend the night in a basement alcove. In the morning, she escapes through the basement window with the help of a local janitor and reaches the Lesnogorsk police station. Junior Lieutenant Dmitry Kruglov, on duty, gives the frozen woman some hot tea, takes her statement, and arranges a police car to Moscow.

Pursuit and search for allies

Lesnogorsk police chief Captain Savchenko receives a statement from Polyanskaya. Two years ago, Zotova assisted in the difficult birth of his teenage daughter, and then transferred large monthly sums to the police department’s account under the guise of security. Savchenko demands Zotova stop the financial transfers, but refuses to open a criminal case, issuing a formal denial.

Returning to her apartment on Novoslobodskaya Street, Polyanskaya sees evidence of a break-in. Her spare keys, personal address book with all her contacts, and her favorite photograph are missing. Realizing she can’t stay home, Elena packs her essentials and leaves for work.

At the editorial office, junior editor Yegor Galitsyn notices a suspicious ambulance at the entrance. The young man takes his boss out in his car and escapes surveillance. He gives Elena the phone number of his acquaintance, Sergei Krotov, a high-profile investigator from Petrovka.

Elena temporarily moves in with her aunt, Zoya Genrikhovna Vasnetsova, on Shmitovsky Proyezd. That evening, Polyanskaya meets Krotov at a café. The experienced investigator understands the legal complexity of the situation: formally proving the doctors’ criminal intent is nearly impossible. Krotov decides to help Elena privately. A mutual attraction quickly develops between them.

The Shadow Syndicate and the First Victims

Anatoly Veis, a medical doctor, is behind the illegal drug production. Health Ministry official Ilya Buryak provides cover from above. Zotova’s laboratory near Moscow processes fetal tissue, but due to a shortage of raw materials, criminals are forcibly removing fetuses from healthy pregnant women.

Galitsyn and Polyanskaya track down Dr. Kurochkin. Threatening him with an unloaded gas pistol, they extract a full confession from him on a tape recorder. The elderly doctor confesses that Zotova had been blackmailing him for years with an old denunciation from his student days and forcing him to refer patients for late-term abortions.

Lydia Glushko, a Moscow mother of many children, is brought to a hospital in Lesnogorsk. Zotova falsely declares the fetus unviable, administers stimulants, and forcibly takes the live baby girl away for lab testing. Intern Valya Shcherbakova contacts the patient’s husband, Georgy, a school friend of investigator Krotov.

Three of Weiss’s henchmen locate Vasnetsova’s address. Bursting into the apartment on Shmitovsky Prospekt, the bandits beat the elderly woman, demanding she reveal her niece’s whereabouts. Zoya Genrikhovna dies of a heart attack. The criminals load her body onto a stretcher and take her in a company ambulance to the cemetery, but on Dmitrovskoye Highway, they crash into a fuel truck at full speed and are burned alive.

Valya Shcherbakova finds Elena in the editorial office and returns the things she left behind at the hospital. Later, in Lidiya Glushko’s hospital room, the intern secretly swaps the IV bottle into which Zotova had drawn a lethal dose of amniotic fluid for a safe saline solution. Krotov gives the confiscated bottle to the forensic team at Petrovka.

The collapse of the Moscow region cell

Having lost his men, Weiss turns to crime boss Ivan Golovanov, aka "The Sorcerer," to eliminate Polyanskaya. The Sorcerer accepts a large advance but entrusts the job to his fellow countryman, the unsuccessful writer Yuri Bubentsov, Elena’s ex-husband.

Bubentsov arranges a meeting with his ex-wife in an abandoned courtyard on Krasnaya Presnya. Because of their similar appearance, he mistakenly shoots a random passerby, Natalya Romanova. Realizing his mistake, the writer enters Vasnetsova’s apartment, finds Elena in the bathroom, and takes aim at her.

A sudden shot to the back of the head kills Bubentsov instantly. The shooter turns out to be Svetlana, a special task force employee assigned to covertly protect Polyanskaya by Andrei Ivanovich, a high-ranking curator of a legitimate state pharmaceutical project.

Zotova decides to get rid of the dangerous witness Shcherbakova and hires a local criminal, Oleg, nicknamed Prusak. On a dark street, Valya blinds the attacker with a spray of pepper spray. Police officer Dmitry Kruglov apprehends the attacker, who immediately turns over the woman who hired him.

That same night, Andrei Ivanovich’s professionals break into Zotova’s apartment. They administer a lethal injection of morphine to her, faking her suicide. Dr. Kurochkin dies at home of acute heart failure.

American connection

Polyanskaya flies to New York to deliver a scheduled lecture series at Columbia University. She stays in Brooklyn with Stephen Pollitt, a longtime friend of her late father. Svetlana follows her on the same flight.

In America, the distribution channel for the illegal drug is controlled by Chechen crime boss Mukhtar Ismailov, nicknamed "Doctor," who owns a chain of restaurants and clinics. Ismailov’s gang receives a tip-off about Elena and sets a bomb on Pollitt’s car, killing the housekeeper, Samantha.

Lena visits an old friend, the impoverished poet Arseny Vereshchagin, in Brighton Beach. Arseny sells her a used pistol and teaches her the basics of shooting. Later, at a subway station, Polyanskaya is attacked by a gunman from the Doctor. She shoots point-blank and kills the gunman.

The bandits take Vereshchagin hostage and demand the journalist’s arrival. Polyanskaya enters the building and shoots the militant leader, Kostolom, saving her wounded friend.

Svetlana obtains compromising data on the Doctor’s network through a massage parlor worker and passes it on to American authorities. Ismailov’s group is ostentatiously liquidated in a large-scale criminal purge. Vereshchagin retreats to a monastery near San Francisco, and Elena returns to Moscow.

Weiss’s arrest and a new life

Anatoly Weiss is hiding in the remote village of Kamyshi near Moscow. Upon learning of the death of his American partners, he decides to personally deal with Polyanskaya. Having tricked the editorial office into revealing the flight’s arrival date, he arrives at Sheremetyevo-2 Airport with a fake passport.

A raid team led by Colonel Kazakov and Major Krotov locks down the terminal. Noticing Elena exiting, the disguised Weiss draws his weapon. Krotov knocks the criminal down, intercepts the pistol, and is shot through the leg. The criminal is taken into custody.

In the spring of 1996, in a Moscow maternity hospital, Elena gave birth to a healthy baby girl, named Elizaveta. Sergei Krotov married Polyanskaya and officially registered paternity. Svetlana anonymously donated the baby’s clothes and stroller to the family.

In May of that year, during a walk in the Hermitage Garden, Elena was approached by Andrei Ivanovich. The owner of a pharmaceutical concern thanked her for her indirect assistance in eliminating dangerous competitors and proposed a mutually beneficial partnership. Polyanskaya firmly refused, condemning the very idea of prolonging human life at the expense of unborn children. The woman returned to her husband and daughter, leaving her dark past behind.