About the book: year / Yulian Semenovich Semenov - Russian writer, historian, journalist, author of the famous novel "Seventeen Moments of Spring" (1970) and a dozen more works about the intelligence officer illegal immigrant Maxim Isaev (aka Max Otto von Stirlitz), whose name and image acquired a truly cult status in the late Soviet and post-Soviet era. However, in addition to novels about Stirlitz, Yu. Semenov wrote several prose cycles with the participation of other heroes - including a detective trilogy included in this collection about the work of operatives of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department led by Major (later Colonel) Vladislav Kostenko: “Petrovka, 38” (1963), “Ogareva, 6” (1972) and “Confrontation” (1979) - considered, along with “Seventeen Moments...”, the pinnacle of the writer’s work. Dynamic action, clearly defined human characters, documentary plot, and authenticity of the nuances of everyday police work made these books bestsellers and predetermined their transfer to film and television screens. The reader also meets one of the characters in this trilogy, journalist Dmitry Stepanov, in the novel “TASS is authorized to declare...” (1979). A detective story about the activities of Soviet counterintelligence, which neutralized a CIA agent nicknamed Smart and thwarted a military coup in the fictional African state of Nagonia, is partly based on real events (the so-called Ogorodnik case) and formed the basis for a multi-part television film of the same name (1984), which, like the film adaptations of others books by the writer, entered the golden fund of Soviet cinema.