The book includes about fifty essays about the work of writers - masters of detective fiction from many European countries, as well as the USA and Japan, whose works are known to the Soviet reader. These are P. Boileau and T. Narcejac, E. S. Gardner, S. Japrisot, P. Vale and M. Cheval, A. Christie, J. Simenon, D. Hammett, D. Chase, R. Stout, B. Raynov , E. Edigei, D. Francis, S. Matsumoto, etc. Information about publications is provided. The bibliographic section contains a list of foreign detective stories of the 20th century, published in books and magazines in Russian over thirty years - from 1960 to 1989. The appendix contains lists of serial publications, collections and anthologies of detective stories by country.