This series follows the life and work of Arkady Renko, a chief homicide inspector in Moscow. It paints a gritty picture of post-Soviet Russia through compelling crime plots. Readers are drawn into intricate cases and political machinations that shape the characters' lives and the nation's destiny. This is immersive reading for fans of detective fiction and Russian literature.
They lay peacefully under their thawing crust of ice. Pribluda shouldered Arkady aside. When I am satisfied questions of state security are not involved, then you begin. It did indeed become a triple murder investigation for Chief Investigator Arkady Renko. Three corpses had been found in Moscow. But why the horrific mutilations?
Arkady Renko has made too many enemies and now he toils in obscurity on a Russian factory ship in the middle of the Bering Sea. But when a female crew member is picked up dead with the day's catch, Arkady becomes obsessed with the case and once again discovers more than he wants to know and certainly more than he bargained for....
"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
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.
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.
Moscow lies deep under snow, and Arkady Renko is called in to handle a delicate matter: passengers riding the last metro of the night have reported seeing the ghost of Stalin on the platform edge. Renko's girlfriend Eva and his adopted son, Zhenya, seem to be slipping into danger.
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.
A blistering new Arkady Renko novel whose heroine - the courageous, enigmatic journalist Tatiana - is based on real-life journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
From the 'master of the international thriller' (New York Times), comes a new Arkady Renko novel.
