As you know, in the twentieth century there were three great detectives - Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and Major Pronin. The latter can also be considered as an analogue of agent 007 - James Bond. At the same time, novels about Bond began to be published in the 1950s, and works about Pronin - in the late 1930s. The main character of Soviet spy literature, the terror of all foreign residents, Ivan Pronin, investigates the most mysterious and mystical crime of the Soviet era. This is a real detective in the Soviet style - scary, witty and stylish. This novel was found in the writer’s archive quite recently, was published in limited editions and has become a bibliographic rarity.