"I, Investigator..." by Arkady and Georgy Vainer, summary

This book is a classic Soviet detective story, written in 1968. The text is told in the first person. The investigator is portrayed as an ordinary man. The protagonist overcomes bureaucratic obstacles, fatigue, and family troubles. The narrative depicts the painstaking process of gathering evidence. Finding the criminal requires analyzing disparate facts across the vast territory of the country.

The film of the same name was released in 1971 by the Gruzia-Film studio. Vakhtang Kikabidze played the lead role. The adaptation was a great success with audiences.

Investigation begins in Crimea

A Moscow criminal investigator is preparing to go on vacation. His relationship with his wife, Natasha, is in crisis due to his constant work commitments. She plans to fly south alone. She has openly declared her desire to separate.

On the eve of his departure, on September 4, the protagonist is urgently sent to Crimea. Near the village of Solnechny Gai on the Yalta-Karadag highway, the body of a man with three bullet wounds to the back of the head is found.

Local police inspector Andrei Stepanovich Klimov is helping a Muscovite follow up on initial leads. The victim was dressed in imported clothing, his jacket and documents were missing. Construction trust papers and Lux cigarette butts were scattered near the body.

The investigator is questioning local residents. The drunkard Prokudin was selling imported goods at the market. The parasite Dakhno was hitchhiking with a bloody jacket. An autopsy proves that both suspects are innocent of the murder. Analysis of cigarette butts and tire tracks shows that the victim and killer arrived together in a Volga.

Victim identification

Finding the criminal is impossible without establishing the identity of the victim. Forensic expert Leontyev reconstructs the text on a half-rotted scrap of prescription from the corpse’s pocket. A brand mark on a comb is decipherable. The trail leads to swimming pool clinics in Tallinn. The hero flies to Estonia.

Surgeon Tiit Aar confirms the issuance of a prescription for a potent drug. The patient turns out to be Yevgeny Koretsky, the navigator of a fishing vessel. The shipping company’s management identifies the deceased from a photograph. It turns out that Koretsky took a vacation and went to Leningrad to buy a new car. The protagonist moves north.

Leningrad clues

Detective Inspector Leonidov helps find Koretsky’s fiancée, student Tamara Ratanova, in Leningrad. The investigator breaks the tragic news of her fiancé’s death. The girl talks about buying a blue Volga.

Koretsky’s Moscow army friend, Otari Abuladze, and his new acquaintance, Tbilisi mechanic Alexei Saburov, celebrated the purchase with him. Saburov had recently sold his car at a profit. The trio were planning to travel south to test-drive Koretsky’s car. Koretsky urgently returns to Moscow to inspect Otari Abuladze.

Dentist Abuladze turns out to be alive and well. He confirms their trip. Otari and his friends only made it as far as Moscow. His vacation was ending. On September 3rd, Abuladze was already seeing patients at a Moscow clinic. Otari’s alibi is irrefutable. The doctor describes Saburov’s appearance: tall, strong, dark-haired, with light eyes. Saburov is missing two fingers on his right hand.

The Mystery of the Coffee Volga

Inquiries to the Tbilisi and Leningrad traffic police yield paradoxical results. The real Alexey Saburov is in Georgia. He has never traveled anywhere and has never owned a car. Saburov lost his passport in August. It becomes obvious: the criminal is operating under an assumed name.

The detective constructs a logical chain of events for the killer. The bandit stole a coffee-colored Volga from Associate Professor Rabaev in Tbilisi. Arriving in Leningrad, the criminal sold the car to mechanic Viktor Kosov. He used Saburov’s passport and a counterfeit registration certificate for the transaction. The bandit then arranged to travel with Koretsky, killed the young navigator in Crimea, and took possession of the blue Volga. The killer then sold Koretsky’s car to a buyer named Kokhiani in Tbilisi.

The Riga Trail

The bandit left traces in Latvia. He caused a drunken brawl at the Perle restaurant in Riga, was detained by police, and presented someone else’s passport, belonging to Saburov. The hero flies to Riga. Together with local detective Jānis Krūmins, they interrogate waitress Elga Smildzina. She helps them find pop singer Vanda Lināre. The bandit stayed with Vanda for several days.

The singer believes the perpetrator was simply a generous business traveler. The killer suddenly disappeared on September 18th. Wanda saw a license plate, a can of paint, and a homemade spray gun in her partner’s briefcase. The gunman called his friend long-distance. In the conversation, he asked for "oilers" — a criminal slang term for bullets.

Attack on cash collectors

The operational report for September 18 explains the reason for the criminal’s hasty escape. That day, Bandit stole Dulitsky’s car. He repainted the car with a spray gun and carried out an armed attack on cash collectors outside a grocery store.

The criminal killed Mironov’s security guard and seriously wounded Balodis, the cash collector. He was unable to seize the cash-in-transit bag due to Balodis’s desperate resistance and Mironov’s return fire. A ballistics examination has reached a definitive conclusion: Koretsky in Crimea and Mironov in Riga were killed with the same TT pistol.

The investigator realizes the scale of the threat. The killer is out of ammunition and is searching for more for his next crime. The Riga telephone exchange reports the location of the call: The bandit contacted Lvov.

Lviv ambush

The hero heads to Lviv. The local head of the paramilitary security, Petr Berezko, confesses to the crime. A few days ago, an old acquaintance, Vasily Prokhorov, came to visit him. This was the assumed identity of Bandit.

Berezhko naively gave his guest several machine gun cartridges, thinking about hunting. Prokhorov also actively inquired about the arrival date of new cars at the local auto shop. On the day of the investigator’s visit, another Volga was stolen in Lviv.

The detective analyzes the criminal’s signature. The plan is clear. The bandit will repaint the stolen car, attach a stolen Riga license plate, and attack the cash collectors outside the auto shop in the morning. Twenty-five buyers are expected to bring huge sums of cash for the cars.

Arrest of the criminal

The investigator consolidates all the incidents into a single criminal case. Together with the head of the Lviv criminal investigation department and Inspector Kandaurov, an operational plan is developed. In the morning, police officers block the approaches to the auto shop.

The criminal appears at the counter, watching for the cash collectors. As he exits the building, the officers quickly subdue him. The killer falls into the open door of a police car, unable to use his weapon. Kandaurov picks up the TT pistol knocked onto the pavement.

During interrogation, the detainee refuses to give his name. He refuses to look the investigator in the eye. The protagonist sends the fingerprint card to Moscow for final identification of the killer. Further investigation of the case is transferred to the USSR Prosecutor’s Office. The protagonist steps out onto a nighttime street in Lviv. The capture of his ruthless enemy brings him immense relief.