Martin Cruz Smith is an American novelist renowned for his gripping thrillers that delve into complex international politics and the intricacies of human nature. He is particularly celebrated for his series featuring the Moscow investigator Arkady Renko, a character who first captivated readers in "Gorky Park." Smith's narrative style is characterized by its atmospheric depth, intricate plotting, and insightful exploration of societal dynamics. His work consistently offers readers suspenseful mysteries interwoven with profound observations on the human condition.
Set against a backdrop of political intrigue and espionage, this Arkady Renko thriller delves into complex characters and gripping narratives. With a blend of historical context and modern-day tension, it promises to engage readers who enjoy the works of Robert Harris, Ken Follett, and Philip Kerr. The story unfolds with Renko navigating a web of deception, making it a captivating read for those who appreciate thrilling mysteries and deep character exploration.
A triple murder in a Moscow amusement center: three corpses found frozen in the snow, faces and fingers missing. Chief homicide investigator Arkady Renko is brilliant, sensitive, honest, and cynical about everything except his profession. To identify the victims and uncover the truth, he must battle the KGB, FBI, and New York police as he performs the impossible--and tries to stay alive doing it.
Gorky ParkA triple murder in a Moscow amusement center: three corpses found frozen in the snow, faces and fingers missing. Chief homicide investigator Arkady Renko is brilliant, sensitive, honest, and cynical about everything except his profession. To identify the victims and uncover the truth, he must battle the KGB, FBI, and New York police as he performs the impossible and tries to stay alive doing it.NightwingVampire bats: Evil. Clever.Deadly.Driven by blood-hunger across the American landscape, they bred and multiplied, unseen and unsuspected, each one a grisly messenger of death. No warm-blooded creature is safe from their thirst. Now, as darkness gathers, the sky is filled with the frantic motion, the maddening murmur of . . . Nightwing.
He made too many enemies. He lost his party membership. Once Moscow’s top criminal investigator, Arkady Renko now toils in obscurity on a Russian factory ship working with American trawlers in the middle of the Bering Sea. But when an adventurous female crew member is picked up dead with the day’s catch, Renko is ordered by his captain to investigate an accident that has all the marks of murder. Up against the celebrated Soviet bureaucracy once more, Renko must again become the obsessed, dedicated cop he was in Gorky Park and solve a chilling mystery fraught with international complications. Praise for Polar Star “Stunning.”—The New York Times Book Review “Impossible to put down . . . a book of heart-stopping suspense and intricate plotting, but also a meticulously researched, ambitious literary work of great distinction.”—The Detroit News “Martin Cruz Smith writes the most inventive thrillers of anyone in the first rank of thriller writers.”—The Washington Post Book World “Gripping . . . absorbing.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Sharply, evocatively written and elaborately plotted...It should find as many friends as did GORKY PARK." THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD Back from exile, Arkady Reko returns to find that his country, his Moscow, even his job, are nearly dead. Not so his enemies. Hounded by the Russian mafia, chased by ruthless minions of the newly rich and powerful, and tempted by his great love, Arkady can only hope for escape. Fate, however, has other ideas.... A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK A LITERARY GUILD MAIN SELECTION
Chernobyl: the Zone of Exclusion. A ghostly place, deserted and forgotten for almost two decades; now inhabited by militia, shady scavengers, a few reckless scientists, and some elderly Ukrainian peasants . . . This is the eerie and dangerous world Inspector Arkady Renko must navigate if he is to find out the truth behind the death of one of Russia’s richest oligarchs. Pasha Ivanov has been found dead on the pavement outside his luxury high-rise apartment in Moscow. It seems like a straightforward suicide, but Renko, never one to take evidence at face value, refuses to drop the case, and there is something puzzling him: a mountain of salt found in Ivanov’s wardrobe . . . Determined to look deeper into the circumstances of Ivanov’s demise, he acquaints himself with this wealthy businessman’s powerful and corrupt circle, until his investigations lead him to Chernobyl’s notorious Zone of Exclusion, where the body of Lev Timofeyev, Ivanov’s former research partner, has been discovered in a contaminated cemetery . . . Masterfully crafted and told with extraordinary insight and imaginative breadth, the bestselling author of GORKY PARK brings us Renko’s most beguiling and unusual adventure to date.
I 1872 vender en engelsk mineingeniør modvilligt hjem fra Guldkysten. Hans foresatte sender ham til en mineby i Lancashire for at finde en forsvunden kapellan, og det bliver i enhver forstand en barsk og farefuld færd i en rå og umenneskelig underverden
In Three Stations, Renko's skills are put to their most severe test. Though he has been technically suspended from the prosecutor's office for once again turning up unpleasant truths, he strives to solve a last case: the death of an elegant young woman whose body is found in a construction trailer on the perimeter of Moscow's main rail hub. It looks like a simple drug overdose to everyone -- except to Renko, whose examination of the crime scene turns up some inexplicable clues, most notably an invitation to Russia's premier charity ball, the billionaires' Nijinksy Fair. Thus a sordid death becomes interwoven with the lifestyles of Moscow's rich and famous, many of whom are clinging to their cash in the face of Putin's crackdown on the very oligarchs who placed him in power. Renko uncovers a web of death, money, madness and a kidnapping that threatens the woman he is coming to love and the lives of children he is desperate to protect. In Three Stations, Smith produces a complex and hauting vision of an emergent Russia's secret underclass of street urchins, greedy thugs and a bureaucracy still paralyzed by power and fear.
1922, Tokyo. Harry Niles is a 'wild child', an American boy in a strange country, ignored by his missionary parents. So Harry begins to lead his own life in the Tokyo underworld. One night, he is charged with delivering a painting to an enigmatic figure, the samurai Ishigami. It is an encounter that will haunt Harry Niles forever . . . 1937, Nanking. China is under attack. The Japanese army is brutally and systematically murdering and raping the local population. In the midst of this horror, Harry finds himself face to face once again with Lieutenant Ishigami. But for the samurai warrior, their meeting leads to the greatest possible dishonour - public humiliation. 1941, Tokyo. With the attack on Pearl Harbour only days away, Japan is on the brink of war with the United States. Harry Niles has become a man of many faces. Allying himself with both sides, he treads a dangerous - but profitable - path between the fading glory of the Chrysantheum Club, where the city's banking and industrial elite meet, and the shadowy Tokyo underworld. 'An impressively clever evocation of a time in which a cast of fallible, complext characters perform an elaborate dance of death and deception' The Times
The body, what remained of it, was drifting in Havana Bay when Arkady arrived from Moscow, prompted by an urgent message from the Russian embassy about his missing friend Pribluda. The Cubans claimed the corpse in an inner tube was Pribluda, but Arkady had doubts. He confronts Ofelia Osorio, a detective in the Policia Nacional de la Revolucion, questioning the lack of investigations into assaults and murders, wondering if it’s open season on Russians in Havana.
The Cold War comrades have turned bitter, and the once-frequent Russians in Havana are now rare and despised, even more than Americans. The city is vibrant with color and music, yet steeped in suspicion. The Revolution’s heroes have lost their idealism, and Cuba has become a mere stop for sex tourism. Amidst empty stores and a mix of ideologies, an American radical promotes investments while a Wall Street developer on the run from the FBI flies a pirate flag.
Despite the dangers, including the murders of a Cuban boxer and a prostitute, Arkady is undeterred. He struggles with the language, is a pariah as a Russian, yet feels drawn to the city’s beauty and rhythm, especially Ofelia. The narrative explores the depths of the human heart, showcasing the careful writing that distinguishes the series.
Investigator Arkady Renko, the pariah of the Moscow prosecutor's office, has been assigned the thankless job of investigating a new phenomenon: late-night subway riders report seeing the ghost of Joseph Stalin on the platform of the Chistye Prudy Metro station. The illusion seems part political hocus-pocus and also part wishful thinking, for among many Russians Stalin is again popular; the bloody dictator can boast a two-to-one approval rating. Decidedly better than that of Renko, whose lover, Eva, has left him for Detective Nikolai Isakov, a charismatic veteran of the civil war in Chechnya, a hero of the far right and, Renko suspects, a killer for hire. The cases entwine, and Renko's quests become a personal inquiry fueled by jealousy.
Four men select the test site for the first atomic weapon in New Mexico. One of them is Sergeant Joe Pena, a hero, informer, fighter, musician, and Indian.
A blistering new Arkady Renko novel whose heroine - the courageous, enigmatic journalist Tatiana - is based on real-life journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
A beautiful young woman called Marilyn picks up a stranger in a bar and takes him home to her Manhattan apartment. The next morning her housekeeper discovers Marilyn's body. Marilyn's life and death have far-reaching effects on others, even people she has never met: a charismatic former police commissioner on the verge of a breakdown; a struggling writer; a folk art dealer plumbing the depths of her own fierce sexuality; a lawyer who prefers murder trials because there's one less witness. And in a city reeling from 9/11, an unlikely mass murderer wages a one-man war against everyone. In this gripping, multi-faceted story, Block not only brings to life in brilliant detail the city of New York, but proves he is one of the most talented, innovative and surprising crime writers in the business.
Stella Polare - Due grandi romanzi di un maestro del thriller
363 pages
13 hours of reading
Tra la neve del Gorky Park di Mosca emergono i corpi mutilati di due uomini e una donna. È il punto di partenza di un thriller paragonabile ai capolavori di Le Carré.
Moscú, años ochenta. Los moscovitas carecen de libertad e intentan sobrevivir como pueden. La dirigencia, rica y corrupta, está decidida a erradicar cualquier clase de iniciativa individual. Arkady Renko es un investigador de la milicia moscovita, que se esfuerza por hacer su trabajo a pesar de las intromisiones del KGB. La aparición de tres cadáveres, desfigurados y sin huellas dactilares, bajo la nieve del Parque Gorki supondrá un desafío para Renko, pues cualquier descubrimiento que incomode al gobierno significará el fin de la investigación.
In einer Stadt, in der das bevorzugte Werkzeug normalerweise ein gezielt platzierter Gerücht ist, ist die Erschlagung von Außenminister Lansard Blaine im Lincoln Bedroom ein grausamer erster Fall. Der Rechtsberater des Weißen Hauses, Ron Fairbanks, wird beauftragt, zu ermitteln. Es gibt hartnäckige Gerüchte, dass der Minister ein versierter Frauenheld mit Verbindungen zu einer glamourösen Callgirl war. Es gibt auch besorgniserregende Beweise für inoffizielle Verbindungen zu internationalen Geschäftemachern. Im Tod wie im Leben ist Blaine eine Macht, mit der man rechnen muss. Für Fairbanks, der die Tochter des Präsidenten liebt, wird bald klar: Nur wenige hochrangige Insider hatten Zugang zum Lincoln Bedroom in jener schicksalhaften Nacht. Und einer von ihnen war der Präsident. . . .
Een drievoudige moord verwikkelt een Russische politieman in een duister komplot van de KGB
367 pages
13 hours of reading
In een park in Moskou worden drie onherkenbaar verminkte lijken gevonden; de koppige commissaris van de moordbrigade - die in zijn onderzoek wordt gehinderd door de geheime dienst - heeft dan ook veel moeite om achter de ware toedracht te komen.
Het onderzoek naar een bomaanslag voert een Moskouse politieman in augustus 1991 naar München, waar zijn ex-vriendin werkt bij een anti-Sovjet radiozender.
Arkadi Renko, de hoofdpersoon uit de veelgeprezen en verfilmde thriller Gorki Park is terug. Niet als politie-inspecteur, maar als arbeider op een Russische drijvende visfabriek genaamd Poolster. Wanneer het lijk van een vrouwelijk bemanningslid uit het ijskoude water van de Bering Straat wordt opgehaald, vraagt de kapitein aan Arkadi of hij dit incident wil onderzoeken. Steeds dieper dringt Arkadi door tot de complexe intriges van de sinistere bemanning van de Poolster. Maar ook hun Amerikaanse collega's van The Eagle, met wie de Russen in het kader van de perestrojka een samenwerkingsverband hebben opgezet, spelen een duistere rol in het geheel. Langzamerhand legt Arkadi Renko een web bloot van smokkel, corruptie, drugs en spionage... Ook in deze roman weet Martin Smith weer met meesterhand zijn personages te beschrijven. Poolster: een ijselijk spannende thriller die alles biedt waar de talrijke fans van Gorki Park op hebben gewacht.
