"The Law of Scoundrels" by Chingiz Abdullaev, summary

This book is a crime detective story about a cynical conspiracy between criminal syndicates amid the Karabakh War. Heavy losses are being suffered on the front lines. Crime bosses calmly smuggle shipments of Afghan drugs across the broken front lines for fabulous foreign exchange profits. Blood flows like a river. The author wrote the novel in 1995, hot on the heels of actual military action in the Caucasus.

The novel is part of the "Drongo" detective series, number nineteen. An unnamed analyst carries out assignments for special committees in the stories "Blue Angels," "An Almost Incredible Murder," and "Ocean of Hatred."

Execution in the border gorge

High in the mountains, an old shepherd named Kurban is tending a state farm flock with fifteen-year-old Ali Novruzov. Strangers appear on the trail. Five armed men approach the shepherds’ camp, carrying tightly packed bales on their broad backs. The old man recognizes Armen. A black-moustached Azerbaijani named Omar Efendiyev instantly shoots the shepherd with a long burst of automatic fire, fearing the group’s possible exposure. The teenager is seriously wounded.

Abandoning the bodies, the gang hurriedly heads for the Araks River. The seriously wounded Ali survives thanks to Geneva surgeon Christian André, who is serving with the Red Cross mission in a Baku hospital. The boy reveals the truth. Along with the Armenian fighters, Azerbaijanis, led by a tall, bald stranger, were crossing the restricted border zone. Fat Kazimov identifies his fellow countrymen. Investigator Jafarov immediately dispatches the prosecutor’s office to the frontline Beylagan district to interview refugees and heads of war-ravaged collective farms.

The death of an authority figure in the capital’s luxury sector

The body of influential Georgian crime boss Mikhail Moseshvili, nicknamed Mikho, is found in Moscow’s Hotel Ukraina. The killer fired twice. The bullets pierced the crime boss’s heart and lung silently, thanks to a high-quality silencer on the pistol barrel. Major Mikheyev removes his ring. The seasoned detective hides the valuable evidence to protect it from the dishonest orderlies at the city morgue. The day before, the deceased had been expecting a visitor.

Suitcases containing stacks of dollars were in the safe. Arriving at the prosecutor’s office, Guram Khotyvari, a Moscow crime boss, cynically takes the body of his murdered boss directly from the morgue thanks to a personal call from his patrons in the mayor’s office and categorically forbids investigators from approaching the deceased’s country house. The law is powerless here. The next day, the witness, Semenova, a maid, is mercilessly murdered in the dacha village with a well-aimed shot at point-blank range. The killer destroys his traces.

Caucasian drug trafficking and blackmail

Interpol regional inspector Gerald Lawton and Hungarian Gyula Nylassi visit expert Drongo in Baku. The guests ask for assistance. Foreigners from Paris report a gigantic pipeline smuggling Afghan opiates through the devastated Karabakh border directly to Georgian ports. The analyst refuses to help. An unknown blackmailer with a cloying baritone calls the expert’s home number with direct threats to his sister’s family. Drongo flies to Moscow.

In the capital, retired Chekist Vladimir Vladimirovich supplies a fugitive with false documents from Australian reporter Robert Crowe in Melbourne. The center dispatches an agent. A Transcaucasian syndicate has united the elites of warring ethnic clans for the sake of billions in profits from the unimpeded transit of opium. Azerbaijanis deliver the drug. Armenian guides then escort the cargo through the military zone directly to ports on the Black Sea coast for loading onto European ships.

Meanwhile, investigator Jafarov interrogates collective farm chairman Vagif Gumbatov in a refugee tent city near Beylagan. The old man reveals the origins of the massacre. Any war is started by scoundrels for personal enrichment and the wholesale plunder of a gullible population under the guise of patriotism. The Iranians hand over two corpses. Mirza immediately identifies the murdered smuggler, Omar Efendiyev, from an old family card received from his unfortunate father. The criminal trail leads the investigation to Baku.

Ambush at the resort port

Drongo travels to Batumi in the luxury car of influential Tbilisi thief David Gogia. The seaside town is abuzz with gunfire. During the night, unknown assailants attacked the boat of local mafia boss Shalva Rurua and stole goods worth a million dollars. Tamara shows up at the hotel. The charming Georgian woman speaks impeccable English and provokes the guest with a fake request for a cigarette. Security chief Pagava threatens him. Soon, security officer Otar suspects the journalist of having ties to the assailants because of Gogia’s car.

The elderly Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Adjara, Avtandil, hosts a grand all-night banquet at his villa in honor of a guest, sincerely mourns his son, who died in the civil war, and unexpectedly protects a stranger from the deadly vengeance of suspicious port smugglers. In the morning, a hitman arrives. Private investigator Andrei Sharov holds the expert at gunpoint with a silenced pistol and demands a confession about his connections to the thieves. Tamara shoots him in the forehead. A tour agency employee turns out to be a career Georgian state security officer deeply embedded in Shalva Rurua’s inner circle. Sharov served the Mingrelian clan. Breaking news arrives from Moscow about the death of the crime boss Archil Gogia. The expert rushes to the capital.

The Capital Massacre and the Capture of the Heron

The murder of Archil Gogia at the door of his office unleashes a full-scale war between Moscow’s gangs. A bloody division has begun. Guram Khotyvari deliberately betrayed a rival to overseas gangsters in order to seize the late Mikho’s criminal throne for himself. Militants intercept the outsiders. At Sheremetyevo Airport, Guram’s men kidnap three American shooters wearing red scarves right from the parliament hall. Their ears are cut off. A grisly package in a cardboard box is sent to State Duma deputy Boris Lazarev, who has close ties to Slavic gangs and the New York thief Ryabov.

Elderly war veteran Vikenty Alekseevich overhears a conversation between his neighbor’s hired gun in Klinovsk, near Moscow. The bandit boasts of high-profile cases. To his accomplice, the hitman nicknamed Tsaplya openly discusses the shooting of Mikho, the death of Archil, and the upcoming assassination attempt on sculptor Rafael Bagirov. The veteran hobbles to the police station. The police officer on duty calls the apartment’s owner and foolishly scares off the dangerous gunman. Tsaplya drops his belongings. In an ambush, Major Mikheyev’s operatives break into a suitcase in a locker at Kursky Station and apprehend the hired gunman’s accomplice red-handed.

Mikheyev and investigator Chizhov secretly warn Bagirov of the impending danger. The sculptor reveals the truth. The late Mikho planned to eliminate Ryaboy through his New York contact, Vakhtang, who turned out to be a double traitor. Bagirov enlists a reputable intermediary. Influential Jewish community leader Filya Rubinchik agrees to negotiate with Slavic groups for a ten percent share of the overall profits. The war is drawing to a close.

Defeat of the syndicate and retribution

In Baku, investigator Jafarov storms a Turkish company’s warehouse in a residential neighborhood. A police officer dies under fire. Mirza, wounded in the forearm, personally apprehends Zeynal Manafov amid boxes containing two hundred kilograms of contraband drugs. The bald coordinator escapes. The arrested militant hands over pass numbers signed by the republic’s deputy prosecutor, Anver Veliyev. In his office, Kazimov interrogates his terrified boss. Veliyev is forced to reveal the name of the trafficking ring’s main patron: Asif Pashayev, chairman of the state-owned concern. The mafia has become entwined with the government.

At Sadykhov’s suburban dacha, detectives discover the fugitive’s hidden car. Interpol tracks down the base. Lawton, Dzhafarov, and Elmar Agayev capture Papadopoulos right in the abandoned barracks of a military camp near the village of Pirikishkul. Grek reveals his accomplices. Meanwhile, at the government dacha in Zagulba, unknown liquidators expertly strangle the all-powerful Pashayev with a silk noose. The detectives find his cold corpse.

In Moscow, Drongo catches up with the fugitive Deputy Minister Sadykhov at a safe house on Ostozhenka Street. The official is shaking with fear. Pressed against a cold wall, Sadykhov reveals to the analyst the secret of the fake order for army units to retreat in order to create a clear strip near the Goradiz station, where criminals were freely transporting crates of the pure drug. Greed has led to carnage. Drongo, disgusted, throws a suitcase full of dollars in the scoundrel’s face. The expert abandons the traitor.

Soon, retribution catches up with the instigators of the massacre. Deputy Boris Lazarev cynically rapes his young secretary right on his office desk before the start of a meeting. The politician then goes to the restroom. The cold-blooded Tsaplya silently shoots the parliamentarian with a pistol equipped with a silencer and leaves the body near the toilet. The killer escapes without a sound. Through the mediation of Filiya Rubinchik, the surviving authorities conclude a long-awaited peace pact on the division of spheres of influence.

Mafia bosses are celebrating victory again.

Major Mikheyev is forced into retirement due to fabricated claims by his superiors about his crime detection rate. Young Chizhov receives a reprimand. In Baku, the honest investigator Jafarov is awarded a modest monthly salary for his heroism in arresting a gang. Manafov is found dead. The arrested militant mysteriously hangs himself in solitary confinement in the pretrial detention center, unable to testify in court. Drongo flies to Paris.