Valery and Natalya Lapikury - in the recent past, the most popular journalists and political scientists of the UT-1 TV channel (programs "Accents", "Yugoslavia. Dead Season", etc.) are debuting in a new genre for them - a detective story in a retro style. In your hands is the first book of the multi-volume series “The Inspector and the Coffee.” More precisely, it is the author’s translation of the Ukrainian original for the Russian-speaking reader. Inspector of the Kyiv Criminal Investigation Department Alexey Sirota is not a fictional character. An officer with almost the same last name, a longtime friend of the authors, actually worked in the capital’s police in the 70s of the last century. These were the times when, with all the grimaces of the socialist system, the police, at least the best part of it, honestly fulfilled their official duty to protect the common man from the encroachments of the criminal world. And it’s not the fault of Alexey Sirota and his colleagues that today the word “cop” has turned from half-joking into an abusive one. Inspector Sirota (or rather, his prototype) died tragically in the late 70s. His friends - Valery and Natalya Lapikurs - resurrected the inspector in their books. Author's translation.