This book is about famous criminals, thieves, robbers, about high-profile trials and criminal cases of the past, which formed the basis of famous works of fiction. By comparing facts and literary fiction, the author, as it were, arranges a confrontation with representatives of the criminal world. Before the reader terrible abysses of vice, base instincts and moral decline open up. But the author’s goal is not to glorify evil, but to show that a person who goes beyond what is permitted will inevitably face personal degradation.