The book skillfully intertwines quite strict historical and scientific research on cemeteries, burial places and other places of rest of the dead. One of the two - either Akunin or Chkhartishvili - even jokes: "I also found out that I am a tafophile," a lover of cemeteries, "it turns out that such an exotic hobby exists in the world (and some have mania). But I can only be called a tafophile conditionally - I did not collect cemeteries and graves, I was occupied with the Mystery of the Past Time: where does it go and what happens to the people who inhabited it. The reader in this book can choose what interests him more - a little-known story about the adventures of Erast Fandorin or an essay-research about the Pere Lachaise cemetery, a place where, according to the author, one can only meet that France that every person since childhood creates in his mind: adventure, mystere, amour...
