OGIS
10-08-2015, 08:18 AM
On the chance that someone on this forum who loves murder mysteries has missed this:
I am not totally sure how I missed reading Smith's masterpiece, Gorky Park, when it was first published back in 1981. But I found a sequel, Wolves Eat Dogs, on a bus, got hooked, and have since ordered the entire series from the library.
The series of murder mysteries, in chronological order:
Gorky Park
Polar Star
Red Square
Havana Bay
Wolves Eat Dogs
Stalin's Ghost
Three Stations
Tatiana
Gorky Park tells of the trials and tribulations of a Soviet detective, Chief Investigator Arkady Renko. Three frozen bodies, two men and a woman, are found off a trail in Gorky Park. All three have been shot through the chest, and the two men have, additionally, been shot in the face to obscure their dental work. There is a delicate political problem: Major Pribluda of the KGB has been nosing around the murder site and has obscured some of the evidence, and Renko suspects that the murders may have been committed by the KGB. Also involved - somehow - is Moscow's Chief Prosecutor and various luminaries high up in the Soviet Communist Party. Everyone has something to lose, including Renko, if he solves the case.
Polar Star finds Arkady Renko "on the run" from the Powers That Be. It is a couple of years since the events of Gorky Park, and he is now working as a "slime-line" worker in the bowels of the Polar Star, a Soviet factory ship cruising in American waters and processing the catches of cooperating American trawlers. But, once again, murder raises it's head: the body of a female Russian crew member with shady connections is retrieved from the bottom of the ocean in a fishing net, and the Polar Star's captain (aware of Renko's "interesting" employment history) dragoons him from the slime-line to solve the crime. Renko must deal not only with the unknown killer(s), but with recalcitrant Americans with things to hide, Soviet Naval Intelligence, and a Political Officer who would like nothing more than to cover up the entire sordid affair.
In Red Square, which I am currently reading, Arkady Renko is now "rehabilitated" and working back in Moscow as Chief Investigator in the post-Soviet New Russia. Renko must solve the bombing murder of a "nice guy" banker to the numerous Russian Mafia organizations, a man who was apparently on good terms with everyone.
These are hellashiously good reads, and Smith captures the peculiar flavor of the Russian and particularly the "Soviet" man in all his absurdist glory. Renko is reminiscent of the Gestapo cop in Night of the Generals: the monomaniacal policeman interested only in bringing the murderer of Polish prostitutes to justice, no matter who the guilty party is.
I am not totally sure how I missed reading Smith's masterpiece, Gorky Park, when it was first published back in 1981. But I found a sequel, Wolves Eat Dogs, on a bus, got hooked, and have since ordered the entire series from the library.
The series of murder mysteries, in chronological order:
Gorky Park
Polar Star
Red Square
Havana Bay
Wolves Eat Dogs
Stalin's Ghost
Three Stations
Tatiana
Gorky Park tells of the trials and tribulations of a Soviet detective, Chief Investigator Arkady Renko. Three frozen bodies, two men and a woman, are found off a trail in Gorky Park. All three have been shot through the chest, and the two men have, additionally, been shot in the face to obscure their dental work. There is a delicate political problem: Major Pribluda of the KGB has been nosing around the murder site and has obscured some of the evidence, and Renko suspects that the murders may have been committed by the KGB. Also involved - somehow - is Moscow's Chief Prosecutor and various luminaries high up in the Soviet Communist Party. Everyone has something to lose, including Renko, if he solves the case.
Polar Star finds Arkady Renko "on the run" from the Powers That Be. It is a couple of years since the events of Gorky Park, and he is now working as a "slime-line" worker in the bowels of the Polar Star, a Soviet factory ship cruising in American waters and processing the catches of cooperating American trawlers. But, once again, murder raises it's head: the body of a female Russian crew member with shady connections is retrieved from the bottom of the ocean in a fishing net, and the Polar Star's captain (aware of Renko's "interesting" employment history) dragoons him from the slime-line to solve the crime. Renko must deal not only with the unknown killer(s), but with recalcitrant Americans with things to hide, Soviet Naval Intelligence, and a Political Officer who would like nothing more than to cover up the entire sordid affair.
In Red Square, which I am currently reading, Arkady Renko is now "rehabilitated" and working back in Moscow as Chief Investigator in the post-Soviet New Russia. Renko must solve the bombing murder of a "nice guy" banker to the numerous Russian Mafia organizations, a man who was apparently on good terms with everyone.
These are hellashiously good reads, and Smith captures the peculiar flavor of the Russian and particularly the "Soviet" man in all his absurdist glory. Renko is reminiscent of the Gestapo cop in Night of the Generals: the monomaniacal policeman interested only in bringing the murderer of Polish prostitutes to justice, no matter who the guilty party is.