The Confessions of Denis Gorin

A Novel

In the bleak, fog-shrouded landscape of Sakhalin Island, a unique predator is forged. Denis Gorin, a man who perceives humanity as "systems" and "material," cultivates a chilling philosophy of "order" and "correction." From the methodical dissection of a stray dog to the silent elimination of those who disrupt his equilibrium, Denis sees his acts not as crimes, but as a necessary "sanitation." His meticulously crafted life of quiet control is shattered by two imprisonments, each a "cage" that, far from breaking him, only sharpens his lethal "craft."

But the world outside is changing. A desperate state, embroiled in a "Special Military Operation" in Ukraine, offers Denis and his fellow convicts a perverse "atonement": six months on the front lines as "assault troops," trading a "worthless life for a clean slate." Here, amidst the "grinder" of war, Denis finds his true calling. His skills, honed to a razor's edge by industrial-scale violence, are not merely tolerated but sanctioned. He becomes a "specialist," a "surgeon" in a "target-rich environment."

Returning to Aniva as a "hero," clutching his "pardon" like a "receipt for services rendered," Denis finds the "peace" of civilian life to be its own unbearable "cage." The town, with its "hypocrisy" and "noisy, inefficient, predictable systems," yearns for a hero it can celebrate, unaware that it has unleashed a refined instrument of its own "correction." "The Confessions of Denis Gorin" is a chilling descent into the mind of a man who believes himself to be the silent architect of order, a relentless force of balance in a chaotic world, and who now, with state sanction, is ready to resume his "work" on a new, more profound scale.