SOFIA, Bulgaria  In his first autobiographical thriller, “Secrets of the Mobsters,” the Bulgarian crime writer Bobi Tsankov, backed by a burly bodyguard and a driver, both armed with semiautomatic weapons hidden underneath their long coats, confronts a gangster boss called Stretko near a lake in the center of Sofia. “So what now?” the boss says, flashing a cocky grin. “Will your guards kill me?”

Mr. Tsankov freezes, eyeing the crimson dots of snipers’ rifles aimed at his heart and head.

In what resembled a scene ripped from the pages of one of his books, Mr. Tsankov, 30, a baby-faced radio personality, who had a conviction for fraud and a penchant for BMW convertibles and crocodile leather shoes, was gunned down last month in daylight in the center of Sofia, shot four times in the head by two gunmen at close range.

His wife, a police officer, was five months pregnant at the time. Krassimir and Nikolai Marinov, brothers and former wrestling champions who had been charged in connection with several killings, were accused of plotting the attack, though Nikolai Marinov remains at large. The two gunmen have not been found.

Bulgaria has had 191 known contract killings since 1992, according to a list compiled by the Center for the Study of Democracy in Sofia. Georgi Stoev, another writer of books about the Bulgarian underworld, was gunned down in front of a hotel in Sofia in April 2008.