Ross Thomas, for the first time in the detective genre, introduced and established a new hero - the so-called Mediator. The intermediary Saint-Yves (the series was published under the pseudonym Oliver Blick) is not a detective or a police officer, but at the same time not a representative of the underworld, but a person who is trusted. The uniqueness of his position between two opposing camps allows him to solve original problems that are not available to ordinary detective heroes, and gives a sense of novelty to the genre itself. (