To Where You Are Awaited

A quantum detective novel set in the diamond city-state of Firokami.

• A girl disappears — and is seen again months later
• Evidence points to another reality
• Detectives must solve a case that crosses worlds

Read the first chapter below.


In the heart of the diamond city-state of Firokami, where societal problems are solved with ruthless efficiency and genetic modification is a way of life, Department 42 handles the cases everyone else has forgotten. Detectives Mergen Hevia and Khan Paradi are specialists in «mosaics»—cold cases that have been abandoned by regular authorities.

When the case of Tala Min, a girl who vanished without a trace five months prior, lands on their desk, the duo expects a routine investigation into a tragic, perhaps accidental, disappearance. However, the investigation takes a surreal turn when reports surface of Tala being seen in her neighborhood — long after she was presumed dead or lost.

As Mergen and Khan delve deeper, they uncover a reality-bending mystery involving:

The Sanctuaries: A government project led by Senator Agen Edject that provides a second chance for the homeless, orphans, and even unwanted animals, but which may hide its own secrets.

Interdimensional Shifts: Evidence suggests that Tala may have slipped into a neighboring reality, a world where her life — and the lives of those around her — took a darker path.

A Tangled Web of Relationships: From their enigmatic and powerful boss, Shan Linial, whose presence can induce hypnotic bliss, to the forensic expert Rodon Meshkha, the detectives must navigate a complex social hierarchy of masters and slaves.

In a city that views its citizens with indifference, Mergen and Khan must piece together a mosaic that spans multiple worlds before the fabric of their own reality begins to tear.

Read the fragment: https://albireo-mkg.com/2026/03/03/extra-puzzles-to-where-you-are-awaited-fragment 

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8,00 €

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Отзывы

  1. Anya –

    The book is stunning. Once I immersed myself in the specifics of its world, I was drawn into the story. I kept wanting to know what the next step would be, what would happen to the characters, and at first I didn’t even have the patience to read carefully (I remember feeling something similar with Eye of Power). There are moments and ideas in the book that I haven’t quite grown into yet, but they didn’t push me away, they made me stop and reflect. And at some point the book seemed to embrace me and hold me tightly, and now I’m trying to preserve that feeling of joy. The aftertaste is very rich and spicy, it makes me want to come back.

  2. Sonya Grona –

    I wrote this review, and somewhere along the way a phrase came to me, the one I would most want to see first when reading other people’s reviews.
    The characters in this book have no inner fracture and no old traumas. They are logical, rational, and they don’t indulge in emotional addiction.
    In modern narratives, even the most attractive characters are expected to have Trauma. A dead daughter, a tyrant father, bullying at school. And the narrative shows how the character copes, yet it still reeks (sometimes outright stinks) of that Trauma. And there must be an emotional scene where the character reveals this Trauma to someone, and the listener is amazed and Suddenly Understands Everything.
    I’m tired of stories like that, I don’t enjoy watching trauma-driven characters. I want to look at beautiful, confident people who handle life well. And Extra Puzzles is exactly about such characters.

    No, this isn’t a story about Mary Sues, it’s simply about reasonable people. People who put reason above emotion, which, by the way, allows them to experience genuine feelings rather than just raw emotions. And almost all of them, even the secondary characters, are a pleasure to watch. They are not stupid, not vile, not embittered, not trying to sell themselves for a few extra coins of fake uniqueness.

    Sadly, in the heart of one boy, Ditta, this hostility toward the world has already taken root, but his life turned out well, and he managed to free himself from its cause. You do feel sorry for him, of course, for having been in such conditions, but for us this situation is valuable because we can see when and why hostility arises. And we can stop this chaos and not let it into our own hearts. Or even, perhaps, stop planting that hostility in the first place.

    The book is full of situations and reflections from which we can draw conclusions for our own lives. Or see the causes behind certain events and then draw those conclusions. Books are meant to teach us how to live. And Extra Puzzles contains many threads worth reflecting on. It is rich in ideas and judgments. It is psychologically convincing and logically sound.

    I don’t really like writing about plots, because I don’t love books for their plots )) After all, any plot can be reduced to “someone did something.” And often the focus is on the action itself, like, something BIG happened. But what matters to me is not the action (the what), but the agent (the who), and the reasons why that someone did that something. So yes, here a team of investigators examines three parallel cases connected to “parallel worlds.” The book, by the way, explains why “parallel worlds” should be in quotation marks )) And it elegantly, on a systemic level, reveals not only the causes of the characters’ behavior but also the cause of the events themselves.

    And of course, it’s a pleasure to watch a well-formed team. It’s a great move when there isn’t just one main character, but a team of main characters. Because each member is a complete individual, and becoming part of a larger whole only strengthens that integrity. In general, it’s always beautiful to see diversity united.

    I feel like my review turned out a bit dull, it doesn’t match the mood and atmosphere of the book. But despite its dynamism and the number of events, what I liked most about Extra Puzzles was its depth, logic, and rationality. And just so you don’t think after my review that the book is boring, there are brutal erotic scenes in it! The plot is dynamic, the characters are funny and attractive, the story is complete, and there’s groundwork for a sequel. So if you’re also tired of infantilism and trauma-driven narratives, read it, you won’t regret it.

  3. Mila Mila –

    The odd one out? Not at all.
    First of all, kicking the door open, I’d like to make an official statement that nobody needs.
    I’m afraid of smiling people. Seriously.
    They trigger a wild sense of discomfort, an urge to pull a crowbar out of my dress pocket and growl under my breath, “What do you want, pal?”
    In moments like that, I picture a moustached, slightly chubby, smiling guy in a striped shirt, slipping a piece of candy into my palm and inviting me down to his basement to play Dendy. New Sonic cartridges, the whole deal. Or a woman asking me to help carry her bags home (I mean, come on, I’m from the same city as Spesivtsev* — I absorbed that fear with my mother’s milk).
    Anyway, where I’m from, people don’t smile like that. And here, everyone did.
    Apparently, in Firokami they either lace the coffee with something or run mild hallucinogens through the water supply. I can’t find any other explanation. Because no normal person can be that cheerful about life while working in the police — Department Forty-Two, remember.
    Even when a colleague smiles at work, I already sense a setup. She’s definitely getting ready to sell me out for a three-kopeck bonus.
    So reading about Mergen and Khan “smiling brightly” every three pages was, at first, an ordeal for me. I kept waiting for them to pull out knives. But no — they’re genuinely like that. Sweet, smiling sociopaths. What more could a woman want.
    Later, many pages in, I started snickering, because scenes from the film Smile kept running through my head. I’d include a screenshot, but I doubt it would get approved (it’s creepy and funny at the same time).
    Now to the most important thing for me: relationships and love.
    I live in my own small, cozy world where pink ponies drift through the air, rainbows curl into pretzels, and the sky reads in big letters: “ONE PERSON FOR ONE PERSON FOREVER. PERIOD.” I know it sounds infantile at my age, and that reality is far more complicated. But these beliefs are rooted so deeply that I start grumbling the moment anyone suggests concepts like “open relationships” or “non-monogamy.” For me personally, that’s the worst nightmare. That’s it.
    So when, in the first part of the book, there was this passing idea that everyone drifts between everyone else, that no one owes anything to anyone and it’s normal, I got seriously angry, put the book aside, and prepared to give it a low rating. I can’t help myself in moments like that. After something like that, nothing usually matters to me anymore — not the plot, not the philosophy, nothing.
    But!
    I was deeply mistaken, and I absolutely loved what it all turned into.
    Because in Firokami, beneath that apparent looseness (as it seemed to me at first), there turned out to be a rigid, painful concept of belonging. I love that in books, and here it was total, absolute control over one another. I understand that this isn’t for everyone, and I’m already running through a blooming field like Shrek while pitchforks fly at my back — but God, how strongly this resonates with me. Butterflies in my stomach.
    Inside the couples, it’s full-scale dominance, control, and jealousy. One character breaks another, but only in the way the other allows, permits, even invites. One is ready to tear someone apart for a single glance in another direction. I lose my mind over that kind of war for another person’s soul. Either you belong to someone, or you’re nothing.
    There’s also a particularly spicy detail. Four letters. I’m not sure I’m allowed to write them outright here… But after reading Cryptonomicon, I understand typography, so here’s what I mean:
    Brave Grandma Serves Mush
    Baffled Dwarf Sinks Mug
    Bored Ducks Study Math
    Brisk Grandma Shares Marmalade
    Pick whichever version you like!
    It was absolutely brilliant here. I screenshotted almost every page and really regretted not having a physical copy, because I wanted to underline everything, scribble notes, memorize it, reread it. It was wild, explicit, with no boundaries and no mercy. Ten out of ten. And it’s a pity you can’t insert quotes here…
    That’s exactly why, somewhere halfway through, the detective plot faded into the background for me. I was reading and waiting specifically for those everyday interactions between the characters. I’m ashamed, but I can’t help it.
    I wanted more of their daily life, more conversations, more of how they live together after work. Because those fragments were diamonds, and I wanted a whole book made of them.
    Now about Firokami itself. It’s divided into parts that are absolutely ingenious from a bureaucratic, cynical standpoint — the “Sanctuaries”. When I read that, I immediately thought: there it is. A utopia. And probably not everything is as good as it seems.
    But the author basically says, “Hold on. It actually works. Let me explain.”
    Kiduary.
    Children come here when they aren’t wanted at home. Parents abusive? Come in. Parents in a nasty divorce using you as leverage? Welcome. A child doesn’t want to live the way they’re told? They’re told, “Great, come here, it’s safe.” Authorities don’t even have to inform the parents where the child is. And yet, raised on “trust but verify, and keep a crowbar within reach,” I still feel suspicious about it.
    Homeuary.
    For the homeless, for women fleeing abusive husbands, for former inmates who can’t find their place, for anyone with nowhere to go. They teach you, feed you, house you — and don’t demand your organs in return. It sounds like utopia again, because in reality such shelters somehow always end in scandals, theft, and those “good Samaritans” turning out to be basement guys with candy. But not here. Here it actually works.
    Beastuary.
    For me personally, that sounds like paradise. A separate shelter for animals. I’d go there myself, honestly.
    On the one hand, all this looks like a kind of wild communism — solving homelessness, child neglect, and animal welfare radically and simply. No more people begging with babies at train stations. And I kept waiting for a catch, but there wasn’t one. It genuinely works.
    About quantum physics.
    I’ve read Alexey Semikhatov***. I’m proud of myself, yes. I opened the book, got into the first paragraphs about superposition, spin-right, spin-left… and almost calmly closed it after understanding roughly 0.000000000000001% of it. Because my brain said, “Darling, we’re not built for this. You’re a humanities person. Go read about love.”
    So when talk of quantum transitions, inflation time at 10 to the power of minus 37, and first- and second-level observers began, I thought, here we go…
    But no. Here, everything is chewed over and placed right into your mouth (yes, that’s also a reference, and my jaw hit the floor — they formed a beautiful relationship there, and produced some excellent butterflies in the stomach). Everything is explained in the simplest possible way, like to someone small and uninitiated. There is absolutely nothing to be afraid of.
    I finished the book literally this morning and I’m still in some kind of strange euphoria. I don’t even know why. Maybe because the last book I read before this was Cryptonomicon, which completely wrecked me, or maybe the stars just aligned, but I feel incredibly good.
    That “Extra Puzzles” became my favorite — I’m on my knees and not getting up. The last few paragraphs, which I also won’t dare quote, made me both cry and laugh.
    So, I wish everyone to find the place where they are truly awaited.
    For now, I’m setting the crowbar aside and going off to dance with ponies and unicorns to Stas Mikhailov**.
    Thank you so much! If there really is some kind of energy that flows from readers to authors, then I want it to hit you like an avalanche. Because so much of it poured out of me I can’t even describe it. You managed to convey and vividly articulate both the worldbuilding and the detective line, and the characters’ obsessions (and something else people don’t talk about in polite company but secretly love). Special thanks, from an admirer of this kind of thing, for the uncompromising 18+ intensity. It was flawless.

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To Where You Are Awaited
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