The Guilty Get Beat

“I don’t remember, I don’t remember, ment”—that is the title of the autobiography of the senior investigator Sergei Kubrin. Born in Kuznetsk, he served as a cipher clerk in the army, rose to the rank of captain in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, became a winner of the “Lyceum” award, and went to investigate cases on the federal territory of “Sirius” in Sochi—but after a year returned to service in Penza, because “everyone must come back home.”

The book “The Guilty Get Beaten” includes the cycle of stories “A Peaceful Citizen” about thieves, brothels, and an operative from criminal investigation Zharkov; a selection of army stories “I Terribly Want to Go Home,” and “Real Evidence”—sketches in the spirit of Dovlatov’s “Solo on the Underwood,” about the everyday life of an investigator who also writes.

“Started reading—straightaway my breath caught. Such accuracy, no pathos and no false gesturing—right on target.

It’s good to read something written by a person who lived, who doesn’t act up—as many do now. He has no reason to show off; he just knows how to tell a story. I believe every word.

Excellent author. Wanted to write—great guy, but I don’t know him; it just seemed that way. In life you still meet people like him, in literature—less and less. But now he exists.” — Zakhar Prilepin

“Kubrin is a truly unique case.

In the police force, dozens of writers worked—but with rare exceptions, they later became authors of the detective genre, ‘entertainers.’

Kubrin, however, doesn’t do ‘genre.’ He wants more. He reaches for Chekhov—or maybe for Dovlatov—trying to surpass the material and reach the heights of an honest, direct conversation about human passions. That is why you should pay attention to him, and that is what you should value him for.” — Andrey Rubanov