Gorky Park (Volume 1): Martin Cruz Smith (The Arkady Renko Novels)

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Set in the late 70s (the book was first published in 1981) this is the SOVIET UNION, Leonid freaking Brezhnev, and still some old pre-revolution folks running around Moscow. Three bodies with identifying features removed are found buried in snow near a skating rink in the titular park. and the discovery of three bodies in Gorky Park is just the start of a conspiracy that will take Renko all the way to New York. Renko exposes corruption and dishonesty wherever he finds it, including on the part of influential and well-protected members of the elite, regardless of the consequences.

If you like crime novels that have a set of well defined characters, atmospheric settings and a rather complex plot then I believe you will enjoy this novel. One of the refreshing things about this is it allows a reader to reframe American Crime fiction and ask, how does our system also create an atmosphere that prevents crime from being resolved. Smith also had excellent timing when he created Renko because through the next several decades he could use his detective to give us mysteries that are also glimpses of what it’s been like for Russians through the fall of the Soviet Union and the aftermath today. Kirwill is singularly dubious regarding this bit of investigative initiative on Renko’s part – “A face from a skull? The conflict that Arkady Renko has with himself as a good person dealt a bad hand, wanting to do the right thing even as he’s incredibly tempted to not, so as to protect himself.Which matters not if he solves the case only he gradually finds out that he was never meant to solve the case because some Party members have other ideas.

officer attached to the Red Army during the Nazi invasion, tasked with interrogating three captured S. It’s a fairly improbable premise that begins this farfetched soviet era thriller that finishes with a totally implausible ending.Perhaps in that climate, nearly 40 years into the Cold War, a thriller set largely behind the Curtain, exploring how the Red half lived, was enough to titilate an audience. The last few chapters were a rollercoaster as the action decamps to the USA and I think I held my breath for the entirety of the penultimate chapter. What makes this murder different is that the killer sliced off the faces and fingertips of all three victims – a gruesome extra touch that might make it seem, at first, as though the identities of the murder victims could never be discovered.