Arkady and Georgy Vainers are recognized masters of the detective genre. In their works devoted to the work of criminal investigation detective Stanislav Tikhonov, on the one hand, there is always an engrossing, tightly wound plot; on the other, complex psychological and ethical problems are raised—without embellishment, the everyday life of a police officer is described. Tikhonov can’t afford to spare himself. To catch a criminal, you always have to act quickly, stay ahead of events, use the tiniest clues, think several moves ahead, unravel trails, and ask many people questions—because each person has their own story and their own interest. In the end, often there isn’t even any talk of rest: the detective has almost no free time and serious difficulties with his personal life… Only a person with an acute sense of justice, convinced that a thief and a killer belong in prison, can withstand such monstrous tension.