Stalin's Ghost: An Arkady Renko Novel

I'm an Arkady fan. This one was pretty good but not as good as some of the others in the series- a little less action.

Arkady still fights very bad guys while trying to help resolve slowly slipping, losing causes. And he is still, in his traditional Russian way, a man of many sorrows. While the book fictionalizes some real & very concerning crime headlines regarding poisonings & whistle-blowers' deaths, it develops intriguing twists that ironically challenge Renko's professional spririt & frustrated personal life. In general, Arkady must deal with Russia's new threats & realities of terrorism, along with hard questions concerning war crimes & cover-ups.

Although the book has an intriguing start, it lapses into a somewhat slow plot build-up. However, M. Cruz Smith does bring his readers unusual plot twists, dead ends, & his usual resolutions to tragic strands of a series of mysteries & criminals making the plots finally tie together in a good finale, just frayed enough to let us hope there is another Renko book-in-waiting. Although this is not his very best book yet, it flashes a picture of some of the unsettling changes in the newest unfolding chapter of Russia's history and is well worth reading.

Sunburn Warning: Don't consider this as a beach book. You'll reach a point where you can't put it down, and even SPF45 won't save you over the course of your reading!

This was a disappointing book, loosely organized, lacking in wit and spirit. The earlier Renko books were MUCH better.

(4.5 stars) In his sixth Arkady Renko novel in twenty-six years, Martin Cruz Smith continues the character development of the aging Renko, a complex police investigator with an inherent honesty that serves as a barrier to advancement in contemporary Moscow. With the downfall of communism, Russia is now filled with corrupt politicians, organized crime lords, police acting as killers for hire, and a pervading uncertainty about the future. With every man for himself, it is no wonder that Renko, at the mercy of higher authorities in the force and unable to investigate the corruption he sees, has developed a healthy cynicism and pragmatism about life.

As the Moscow winter wanes, a mass grave from the early 1950s is found at a construction site beside the Supreme Court building, obviously a place for the disposal of those "dissidents" executed with the help of Renko's father, one of Stalin's trusted deputies. No investigation is initiated, and no one is surprised. The inaction is all part of life in this city where the past and the present come together in a whirlpool which sucks the life out of its citizens. When the ghost of Stalin is seen wandering the subway, Renko is assigned to this low level case. Many ordinary citizens long for the "good old days," Stalinism is on the rise, and Police Inspector Nicolai Isakov, a killer for hire, is running for public office on a Stalinist platform.

A wartime "hero" for his actions as a Black Beret during the Chechen war, Isakov has never received medals or promotion for his behavior, and Renko is curious about why. When the other Black Berets who served with Isakov begin to die violent deaths, Renko begins a surreptitious investigation and finds himself fighting for his life. His personal relationships are not improved when Eva, his lover, strays, and Zhenya, the twelve-year-old street orphan to whom Renko has offered a home, disappears, presumably to hustle at chess.

Cruz Smith's plotting grows naturally from life in Moscow and its values and mores (for good and for evil), and when dramatic and gory scenes of violence arise, they do so within the context of a setting fully developed sociologically and historically. The characters, including secondary characters, are individualized and empathetic at all levels, and Arkady, who has continued to grow and change over the course of twenty-six years, still hopes that goodness will triumph, despite the country's current problems. The occasional black humor and Arkady's sardonic observations keep the reader engaged, even as the author raises questions about the future of Arkady and others like him who hope for long-term justice. n Mary Whipple

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Wolves Eat Dogs

[...] This is another Arkady Renko adventure; you know, the investigator - abused son of a General, who is as curious as a cat with the same resulting disasters and seemingly same number of lives - only not as lucky in love. If you don't already know Renko, I recommend you first read at least the previous latest of his adventures, Wolves Eat Dogs, if not the whole 5 or so previous ones. It will answer some questions that Smith skims over. This time a Russian "War Hero" who is actually something less, is being set up as candidate to try to influence a shift in power in the post cold war, post Chernoble, still corrupt modern Russia. In the enthusiasm of making sure this hero maintains a good image, quite a lot of murders were necessary, and these Arkady Renko could not leave uninvestigated (at great risk to his own life and reputation). Dr. Eve again provides the love life off and on (no pun intended), while maintaining attraction for an old friend, who just happens to also be the hero in question (what tangled plots our follies weave). Zhenya, the almost son, chess prodigy is there doing his teenage thing and rounding out Renko's always disfunctional, but fetching family. Smith keeps me interested, and turning pages and creates a feel of the mirky, vodka soaked Russian contemporary culture with a skill found in few current writers. Keeping it from getting depressing is Arkady's dry sarcastic humor, and his dependable way of somehow getting also out of his many predicaments. Good fun.