"Tender Leaves, Poisonous Roots" by Elena Mikhalkova, summary

This book is a psychological detective novel published in 2015. A murdered girl, as a disembodied spirit, watches the investigation into her own death and attempts to intervene, regretting her actions. The plot of the novel alternates between present-day events and the heroines’ painful school memories, slowly revealing the deep-rooted motives behind the brutal crime.

The work was successfully adapted for television. In 2019, a four-part detective miniseries of the same name, directed by Ruslan Paushu, was released.

The novel is part of the detective book series "Investigations of Makar Ilyushin and Sergey Babkin." Other works in the series include "The Sign of the True Path" and "The Room of Ancient Keys." The detectives constantly face complex cases that require a deep analysis of human psychology and a search for the origins of evil in the distant past.

Invitation to the hotel

Masha, the wife of private investigator Sergei Babkin, receives an unexpected letter from her former classmate, Svetlana Rogozina. Sveta, a renowned school queen who has lived abroad for the past few years, invites her former friends to a bachelorette party at the Tikhaya Zavod Hotel near Moscow. Masha experiences mixed feelings. Her school years left a deep and traumatic memory. Rogozina was a beautiful, domineering, and ruthless girl. She masterfully manipulated her peers and loved to humiliate those weaker than her. Masha agrees to go, to face her former tormentor and conquer her old fears once and for all.

At the appointed time, eight women arrive at the hotel: Matilda (Motya) Gubanova, Ira Koval (Sledgehammer), Lyuba Savushkina (Sova), Angela Losina (Moose), Bella Shvernik, Anna Lipetskaya (Anomaly), and Sasha Strizhenova (Swift). Many of them have changed beyond recognition. Sasha has become a stern beauty with impeccable taste. Anna has transformed into a successful woman, completely unlike the former aggressive, tattooed schoolgirl everyone called Schizo. Svetlana Rogozina herself, now going by the surname Creuzier, appears before them as a striking, well-groomed blonde.

Old school wounds and secrets

Rogozina skillfully orchestrates the conversation. She first wins the audience over, displays polite manners, and then gradually begins to pit the women against each other. She skillfully reminds them of old secrets and provokes quarrels. It turns out that the past still greatly influences the fates of the characters. Anna Lipetskaya ended up in a psychiatric hospital in her youth precisely because of Rogozina’s intrigues. Rogozina lied to her strict stepfather. Masha Yelina bore the stigma of being an informer for many years. However, it wasn’t she who wrote the letter that ruined the life of her beloved physical education teacher, Gudasov.

Because of a false accusation, Masha was expelled from the equestrian club, depriving her of the greatest dream of her youth. Reminiscing about school, Masha also thinks of Anna Lipetskaya. The girl once saved her from a maniac by setting a huge dog on him. The maniac was later found murdered, and Masha is still unsure who killed him. During a joint sauna session, tensions reach a breaking point. Shvernik and Losina exchange crude insults. Angela Losina behaves defiantly and aggressively. Her cruel dog business had previously collapsed after the shooting of her pets.

Masha can’t stand it when Sveta mockingly mentions Gudasov. Rogozina blames Masha for the teacher’s ruined life. In a fit of pent-up rage, Masha smashes a table with a heavy ladle, loudly accuses Svetlana of meanness, and goes to her room. Meanwhile, it turns out that Sveta had compiled a dossier on each of her former classmates. The folders contain irrefutable evidence. There are details of Lyuba Savushkina’s numerous infidelities. There are documents about the financial machinations of coach Irina Koval. Sveta intended to expose all the secrets, enjoying her power and the humiliation of others. She deliberately pitted the women against each other. This was her way of irritating their psychological abscesses.

Bloody murder and investigation

Just a few hours later, the women discover Svetlana Rogozina dead in her luxurious hotel room. An unknown assailant stabbed the victim sixteen times. Sergei Babkin and Makar Ilyushin immediately arrive at the scene. Local investigator Vikentyev begins to openly suspect Masha. After all, she had been in conflict with the murdered woman in front of witnesses. Moreover, Masha accidentally finds a bloody knife hidden in the pantry. The private investigators begin their own investigation. They want to protect Masha from unfounded accusations. Ilyushin notes several oddities.

Masha didn’t recognize many of her classmates when they met, and the women themselves were extremely frightened. After examining the facts and interviewing the participants, the detective puts forward a bold theory. The murdered woman was not Sveta Rogozina at all. Hiding behind her mask was the quiet, straight-A student, Yulia Zinchuk. In eleventh grade, Yulia fell in love with the school’s hottest boy and tried to emulate Sveta. In response, Rogozina, Savushkina, Koval, and Losina cruelly and humiliatingly punished her. They tricked the girl into an apartment, forcibly cut her hair, smeared it with dye, and threw her out into the street in an indecent state. The criminal case was then hushed up by Sveta’s influential father.

The Search for Truth and Stolen Folders

Detectives discovered that the deeply traumatized Zinchuk had undergone multiple plastic surgeries, changed her voice, and completely rewritten her biography. She created a false life online, using paintings by a famous Cambodian artist and photographs of other people’s European villas. Eighteen years later, Yulia gathered her abusers at a hotel to exact revenge and ruin their lives. She planned to publicly expose the real Rogozina, showing everyone what a loser the former queen of class had become.

But Yulia’s sophisticated plan unexpectedly went awry. The real Rogozina was also at the "Quiet Backwater," working there as a common maid. Sveta had long since lost her former wealth. Her father had been imprisoned for corruption, she herself had been expelled from college in disgrace, and she had sunk to the bottom of society. Upon learning that an impostor was living under her name in an expensive hotel room, Sveta infiltrated her and brutally murdered Yulia out of intense envy and a burning fear of exposure.

Meanwhile, Motya Gubanova is tormented by a crushing sense of guilt. It turns out she was the one who wrote the ill-fated anonymous denunciation of the gym teacher, having fallen unrequitedly in love with him, and he refused to continue training with her. Motya accidentally enters the murdered Zinchuk’s room, sees incriminating evidence against her friends, and then, horrified, notices that the papers have been stolen. Savushkina and Koval panic and search for the files, mortally afraid of their dirty secrets being revealed. However, Sasha Strizhenova, who was concealing her secret affair with Lyuba Savushkina’s husband, had already taken the documents and burned them with a lighter. Sasha had planned to break up with her married lover and wipe the slate clean.

The denouement and final showdown

The unscrupulous Angela Losina is the first to guess who killed the impostor, recognizing the real Svetlana in the maid. She plans to brazenly blackmail the killer, hoping for easy money to pay off her loans. Rogozina feigns agreement, lures Losina to a dark park, hits her over the head with a piece of asphalt, and hides her bloodied body under a huge spruce tree. Masha, wandering the forest at night, finds Lipetskaya’s gold chain under the branches, which the cunning Sveta deliberately planted to distract and incriminate Anna.

Masha goes to the hotel storeroom to hide the chain she found and encounters a sullen maid there. Suddenly, Masha recognizes the real Svetlana Rogozina in the haggard, haggard face. Sveta, realizing her terrible secret has finally been revealed, grabs a pair of sharp scissors from the shelf and, with a wild scream, lunges at her former classmate, intending to slit her throat. At this critical moment, the soul of the murdered Yulia Zinchuk, who had been watching the scene unseen from the otherworldly realm, unleashes a powerful poltergeist on the room.

While saving Masha, the rebellious spirit knocks over heavy shelves, scatters caustic chemicals, and turns on an old Soviet vacuum cleaner, distracting Sveta. Babkin and Ilyushin arrive at the eerie noise. They subdue the distraught criminal. Afterward, Yulia’s soul finds peace and ascends to heaven. Losina miraculously survives in intensive care. The detectives successfully unravel all the complex threads of this case, proving the maid’s guilt to the local police. Babkin and Ilyushin stopped the series of brutal deaths in time. Zinchuk created a false life, and her thirst for revenge led to a bloody tragedy, but the truth still found a way to the light, forcing each of her former school friends to forever reconsider their selfish actions. Motya Gubanova, expecting another child, comes to her senses and decides to change her life, and Sasha Strizhenova finds the strength to let go of the past.