"Beastly Detective:
Tail-Eaters" by Anna Starobinets, summary Automatic translate

"Tail-Eaters" is the sixth installment of the "Beastly Detective" series, written in 2021 and published in 2022. It’s a detective story for children and adults, where anthropomorphic animals live in the Far Forest according to the laws of a peaceful society, and crime is rare until a brutal epidemic unfolds. The story is structured in two ways: alongside the detective investigation in the Far Forest, a second storyline unfolds in the Far Sparse Forest, where the free-spirited caracal cat, Karalina, conducts her own investigation.

Black Tail and the First Victims

The story begins in the office of the Psychologist Mouse, where she sees two anxious clients in a row: first, Jacques the beetle from the Ground Beetle-Mosquito Party, and then Ruth the giraffe, a refugee from the Far Sparse Forest. Ruth the giraffe suffers from an obsessive fear of drought, bites her own tail, and — in a trance after a session of tail hypnosis — bites the tail of the Psychologist Mouse herself.

The next day, the Police Badgers — Big Badger and Little Badger — come to inspect the refugees’ stall. Ruth the Giraffe is unresponsive, staring into space, her jaw twisted, her long neck wrapped in rotten grass. Gerochka the Gazelle explains that the giraffe tried to bite off her and Nuk the Geren’s tails that night, and then froze.

Rook examines a giraffe and discovers a small red dot on the tip of its tail. He takes the giraffe to the Family Rook Clinic and places it in isolation. During transport, Mole, a blind member of the Muskrat repair crew, accidentally touches the giraffe’s tail.

The Buzz virus is sweeping through the forest.

A few days later, Psychologist Mouse behaves exactly as she did before the giraffe: she chases Badgercat, yelling "bite!", tries to bite his tail, and then freezes, unconscious. The same scarlet dot appears on her tail. Badgercat lures her to the police station and detains her.

Meanwhile, Mole, from the repair crew, is exhibiting the same symptoms. The desman, whose tail Mole managed to bite, is quarantined along with the infected. Doctor Rook declares an epidemic of a new bite-virus: the infected animal first bites its own tail, then becomes aggressive toward others’ tails — it makes a "bite" sound — and then falls into a deep hibernation. A red dot on the tail is the only outward sign of infection.

In the root-visor, Rook explains the mechanism of the disease’s spread and urges animals not to gather in packs larger than three. Coyote Yot, the owner of the "Suchok" bar, discovers a scarlet spot on his tail: it appeared after a session with Mouse the Psychologist, when they simply touched tails. Fearing quarantine, he paints over the spot with blueberry dye.

The investigation is underway

Badger Senior studies the Psychologist Mouse’s workbook and traces her chain of contacts. Before the giraffe, the psychologist had a beetle named Jacques — he’s not infected. After the giraffe and before Badgercat, she had two clients: the coyote Yot and another client whose name is torn from the notebook page.

Investigating the missing page, Badger Senior sets up an ambush in the psychologist’s office and discovers Yashka the Nimble lizard, a thief with a past. Yashka has his own discarded tail in his knapsack, bearing Mouse’s teeth marks. Yashka confesses: Mouse threatened him, he got scared, and discarded his tail before she bit him. Badger quarantines the lizard as a contact, but the truth about the torn page remains unclear.

The Griffin Line and Bird’s Milk

Meanwhile, Griff the Vulture, a police expert originally from the Far Sparse Forest, writes a confession. It turns out he conducted illegal experiments with bird’s milk and deliberately falsified the analysis of the ominous inscription on the "Suchok" bar, which had been burned with formic acid. He blames a certain Marquise for the inscription, who blackmailed him by hinting at traces of acid in his laboratory. Griff confesses to several crimes in a row and is ready to face punishment.

Rare Forest: Karalina runs her business

In the second storyline, the caracal Karalina, who has just established a police force in the Far Forest, is investigating the case of the shaman Honey Badger, who is being held in a protective circle in the courtroom. The shaman’s wife, Medea, shows her an ostrich skull — a "black mark" against lions — and a slobbery note on a fig leaf. The note is written from right to left in the ancient language of the Forest and signed with three claws, including the hoofprint of the giraffe Rafaella. The text of the note contains a threat to the Honey Badger’s family if he speaks in court.

Medea reveals to Caralina that the giraffe mother, Rafaella, is plotting a power grab: she has an army of great apes — gorillas, baboons, mandrills — and two lions on her side. Caralina acts alone, without the protection of the law, convincing Medea to testify to free the Honey Badger.

The denouement and quarantine finale

Towards the end of the story, Badger Senior, having completed his task, carries the mother flea and her enormous brood back to the Burrows beneath the Impenetrable Hill — the place from which the flea family was once carried away. He discovers not one, but several red dots on his own tail, which reassures him: according to the logic of the bite virus, there should be only one dot. These are traces of flea bites, not an infection.

Ground beetle Zhuzha, the widow of the beetle Jacques, tells Badger of the fate of their young beetles, newly hatched from their cocoons: they have gone on to live their own lives. "We, mothers of beetles, must learn to let go," she says. This final remark brings together several threads of the book: the theme of refugees cut off from their homeland, the loneliness of Badgercat, yearning for Karolina, and the theme of accepting change, which the Psychologist Mouse has unsuccessfully conveyed to her patients throughout the book.