Hamidreza Shahabadi has yet again created a world of mystery and horror and intricate plot and complex characters. This work is the first volume of a trilogy to be and it revolves around three layers of entangled stories. It has two narrators, decades apart in time with each other. One is a boy (majid) who lives with his father and sister and his mother died a few years ago. The other (Reza Qoli), is a poor boy from Qajar Era. He was taken from his family and sent to work as a slave for a cruel master who enslaved young boys in a haunted, feared house. Their paths cross in ways neither could imagine. As Expected from Shahabadi, author of Lullaby for the Dead Girl, social issues and historical events are woven into his storyline. He has brilliant dominance over his prose and how prominent each character should be. The details are well-processed and characters are relatable, especially Reza, who was a rebel and finally fled his master’s claw.The rumor had it that he buried his enemies and unruly servants vertically between the walls of his mansion. But the mystery started with a rumor, about people disappearing in a pool at that house. He lost his friend, who fell into to the pool and came back a changed boy, unlike himself and unlike any other living one. Reza ran away and took shelter with a wise man, struggling with problems to keep his school and fight illiteracy and superstition and ignorance and negligence. They formed a candid friendship and Majid reads about their adventures to stay alive in a diary accidentally fallen into his father’s possession. Majid commenced a quest to find Reza’s school and to fact check his story of the dead whose body never reached the surface of the pool. Friendship, loyalty, history, death, and truth are the main theme of the work. The dead may be gone, their presence lingers over the living and their death is not the end. Majid has lost his mother and Reza, his best friend, Shakoor. They both experienced loneliness and their stories intertwine, with a taste of horror and history.The children of the mansion didn’t believe Shakoor’s comeback. They kept their distance from him and me, as if we are infected with a fatal sickness. I couldn’t leave him alone, he was my best friend who has come back from the dead.

Hamidreza Shahabadi has yet again created a world of mystery and horror and intricate plot and complex characters. This work is the first volume of a trilogy to be and it revolves around three layers of entangled stories. It has two narrators, decades apart in time with each other. One is a boy (majid) who lives with his father and sister and his mother died a few years ago. The other (Reza Qoli), is a poor boy from Qajar Era. He was taken from his family and sent to work as a slave for a cruel master who enslaved young boys in a haunted, feared house. Their paths cross in ways neither could imagine. As Expected from Shahabadi, author of Lullaby for the Dead Girl, social issues and historical events are woven into his storyline. He has brilliant dominance over his prose and how prominent each character should be. The details are well-processed and characters are relatable, especially Reza, who was a rebel and finally fled his master’s claw.