Tavern on Pyatnitskaya. Agony

The name of Nikolai Leonov is well-known to fans of the detective genre. In the 1950s and 1960s, the future writer worked in the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department, and after leaving the Ministry of Internal Affairs with the rank of... captain, he engaged in literary creativity. He is the author of many novels and stories recognized as classics of domestic detective fiction and that have become a "school" for the next generation of writers. "Tavern on Pyatnitskaya" and "Variant Omega" ("Operation Viking") are perhaps his most famous works. The first one unfolds an exciting story set during the NEP era. An officer from MUR infiltrates a gang of repeat offenders, but it turns out that there is a bandit agent among the police officers as well... The plot of the second novel (co-written with Y. Kostrov) relates to the time of the Great Patriotic War and is based on documentary materials about the work of Soviet intelligence agents. These works are familiar to many from their film adaptations, featuring brilliant actors: Alexander Galibin (the charming Pashka Amerika), Nikolai Yeremenenko, and Lev Prygunov in the film "Tavern on Pyatnitskaya"; Oleg Dahl, Irina Pechernikova, and Alexander Kalyagin in the film "Variant Omega." The book also includes detective-adventure novellas "Agony," "Ring," and "Knockout." A master of the detective genre, Leonov virtuously constructs the plot in each of them and maintains intrigue until the very end.