He is called to Gorky park, a popular spot, where an unusually mild April has brought on an early thaw in the snow, revealing of the bodies of two men and a woman, all shot through the chest at close range and the two men in the head. Their faces had been erased and fingertips chopped off to hamper identification. Arkady is used to handling homicides resulting from drunkenness, and these murders have the hallmarks of a state-sanctioned assassination. But before he can secure the area Major Pribluda of the KGB arrives, contaminating the crime scene. The two men have crossed before. The story follows Arkady Renko, a chief investigator for the Moscow militsiya, who is assigned to a case involving three corpses found in Gorky Park, a large urban park in Moscow. The victims - two men and a woman - were shot, and have had their faces and fingertips cut off by the murderer to prevent identification. Renko, through diligent police work, uncovers evidence that one of the Gorky Park victims was an American – a development that would transfer the case from militsiya to KGB jurisdiction, and move him safely off of a politically explosive and dangerous case. And yet, there is a part of him that wants to stay on, to solve the case, even if he sometimes wonders whether he is overthinking the case, making it more complex than it truly is:

Arkady Renko is chief homicide investigator for Moscow's Soviet militsiya (the city's civilian police force). When investigating the murder of three American college students found frozen in the snow of Gorky Park, faces and fingers removed, Renko faces resistance from the KGB, FBI and NYC police.This novel showed us deep corruption at all levels, like that of the eighties, and it told us: the Powers that Be would soon discretely fold it all up and put it out of harm’s way. Martin Cruz Smith, born Martin William Smith (November 3, 1942) is an American writer of mystery and suspense fiction, mostly in an international or historical setting. He is best known for his ten-novel series (to date) on Russian investigator Arkady Renko, introduced in 1981 with Gorky Park. The tenth book in the series, Independence Square, was published in May 2023.

When the book was eventually finished, Smith says: "I knew I'd delivered. And it was wonderful that my two girls were then just old enough to realise what had happened and how the wheel of fortune had turned for us." All his subsequent books have been dedicated to his wife, "Em", who taught English as a foreign language and is widely credited as being an astute early editor of his work. They have three children, Nell, Luisa and Sam, and three grandchildren, and live in an affluent small town 15 minutes north of San Francisco. Smith is proud that its demographics would make it a Republican stronghold in most other places in America. He says his family grew up thinking "FDR was God" and he has retained his liberalism. "My first book, The Indians Won, was quite political and I'm still proud of that. In the years since I've written novels that didn't work, but I've never written one that in some way didn't express a view." i18321884 |b1130002433521 |dpc |g- |m |h46 |x3 |t1 |i8 |j2 |k010630 |n08-03-2023 19:48 |o- |aFICTION S6555go He went into the follow-up, Stallion Gate, which pits science against traditional native American beliefs, "very pro the Indians and anti Los Alamos and the use of the bomb. But I went to Los Alamos and all the people there wanted was that I tell their side of the story and after arguing a lot with them about the use of the bomb, I ultimately sympathised much more than I had expected. "

Months later, Arkady is brought before a KGB General who confirms what Arkady already suspected: that Kostia Borodin (an expert hunter) and Valerya helped Osborne to trap and smuggle live sables - the only high-quality fur-bearing animal on which the Soviet Union enjoys a monopoly - out of Russia. They believed Osborne would help them defect in exchange, but instead he killed them. Now, after several months of negotiations, Osborne has agreed to return the sables in exchange for Arkady being released and brought to America.

Some books: 1970 The Indians Won; '71 Gypsy in Amber; '72 Canto for a Gypsy; '77 Nightwing; '81 Gorky Park; '86 Stallion Gate; '89 Polar Star; '92 Red Square; '96 Rose; '99 Havana Bay; 2002 Tokyo Station; '05 Wolves Eat Dogs.

Table of Contents

It’s early spring in Moscow, and the book opens with the discovery of three bodies in Moscow’s famous Gorky Park – two men and a woman. They’ve been shot at close range, their fingertips pruned and faces sliced off with a rough-bladed knife. Identities can’t be verified. Strangely, they’re wearing ice skates but are among the trees some distance from the park’s rink. Not the normal alcohol-fueled crime Muscovites are used to – will it be a case for the KGB’s Major Pribluda, or will it fall to Chief Investigator Arkady Renko of the local militia (the police, in other words)?

Detective Arkady Renko lives a simple life. Though the son of a decorated war general, and a member of the communist party, he prefers not to make waves or get any marks on his party card. Murder is his specialty, which is fine by him, as all the ones he has come across are the direct results of drunkenness, jealousy or accident. Open. Shut. What he isn’t prepared for are the three frozen bodies found in Gorky Park, with their faces skinned and fingertips cut off. Clearly, this is not your average Soviet murder. There are scenes of meetings between nefarious officials and underworld characters which made no more sense to me than they did to Renko, other than establishing confusing relationships or misdirections as to with whom Renko is friendly. Later, in America, Renko is manhandled and passed around in the custody of the FBI, the New York City police, the KGB, and a rogue triple agent. I am still scratching my head over the supposed reason for the Soviets to allow Renko to travel to America and the Big Finish reveal. It did not ring true at all. Even though this has plenty of Soviet political intrigue and an international aspect to it this doesn’t feel like a spy story, and that’s mainly because of Arkady Renko. During this reread I found myself comparing Renko to one of my favorite fictional detectives, Matt Scudder, because they’re both pragmatic men who don’t see the point in fighting a system that’s inherently corrupt, but there’s a quiet streak of idealism in both that believes that some crimes have to be answered for. Renko is stubborn with a sly talent for screwing up the plans of powerful people, and there’s a great worn down but not beaten element to the character.i19292247 |b1030003107516 |dcmg |g- |m |h7 |x0 |t1 |i1 |j18 |k010630 |n07-29-2023 16:57 |o- |aPS3569.M5377 G6 For example—and this makes for a noteworthy variation on the typical policier—Renko at first tries not to solve his case, but instead to find some piece of evidence—of foreign involvement or some form of conspiracy—that will allow him to dump the whole vexing affair in the lap of the KGB. The vodka-fueled bludgeonings he usually investigates are easy to handle, but these three frozen corpses in Gorky Park—two men and one woman shot to death, their faces and fingertips removed to prevent identification—are another matter entirely. This is definitely something that might attract the attention of his superiors. And that kind of attention is something Arkady Renko does not desire. In discussing theater: "But you can't do Camus' The Stranger for a Soviet audience. A man takes the life of a total stranger for no reason but ennui? It's purely Western excess. Middle-class comfort leads inevitably to ennui and unmotivated murder. The police are used to it, but here in a progressive socialist society no one is tainted by ennui" This is probably my most favorite "detective" novel read to date, because it is so much more than a mystery--it is really a masterfully written, poignant, cynical, realistic, and all-too-palpable portrayal of life behind the Iron Curtain. Having been born and raised in this part of the world before 1989, I almost cannot believe how well an American author was able to capture the dreary, corrupt, existentially-dispiriting and hopeless atmosphere of the era, without moralizing and without futile and inapt comparisons to a cheery, hopeful, democratic "west". In fact, Cruz Smith manages to draw parallels between the two as equally corrupt, and oppressive - in their own ways.