Forty Years Among Thieves and Murderers

The first chief of the St. Petersburg detective police, Ivan Dmitrievich Putilin (1830-1893), became a symbolic figure of Russian investigation. He could identify a murderer by the smallest clues and bring a case to a conclusion, even when it reached a dead end. In his memoirs, Putilin refers to interesting and shocking cases from his working practice. The book includes 22 detective stories co-written with the publicist M. Shevlyakov, as well as "An Essay on Some Types of Theft in St. Petersburg." The collection is preceded by an article by Anatoly Koni (1844-1927) – prosecutor and judicial orator of the Russian Empire.