Three Stations: Martin Cruz Smith

This is the 7th book in the Arkady Renko series by Martin Cruz Smith. I have read all of the earlier books in the series, but it has been 13 years since I read the previous book, Stalin's Ghost. So I don't remember exactly where we left Arkady in that book. 

In the first book in the series, Gorky Park, published in 1981, Arkady was a homicide investigator in Moscow. In the second book, Polar Star, not published until 1989, he is working on a huge fishing-factory ship in the Bering Sea. [I remember that as my favorite book in the series.] In Red Square (1992), he is back in Moscow and again working on the homicide squad in post-Soviet Russia. Havana Bay takes him to Cuba to investigate a crime that no one else wants investigated. In the fifth book, Wolves Eat Dogs, he ends up in Chernobyl and the Zone of Exclusion, an area closed to the world since the nuclear disaster in 1986. So Arkady has had quite an interesting life.

In Three Stations, Arkady is a prosecutor's investigator in Moscow but does not have any current cases because he always causes problems, no matter what he investigates. He decides to help his friend and former partner, Victor Orlov, with his current case, the death of a prostitute by drug overdose. Of course, Arkady sees more in the death than a simple overdose and wants to pursue it. Victor is an alcoholic and Arkady is rescuing him from the drunk tank when we first meet him. 

Arkady befriended a young orphan in a previous book. Zhenya was 11 when Arkady first found him at a children's shelter and he is now 15. They have no legal relationship, but Zhenya is welcome to stay with Arkady whenever he wants. Most of the time he chooses to live in the deserted Peter the Great Casino in Three Stations. He is gifted at chess and makes money taking bets on chess games. 

"What tourist maps called Komsomol Square, the people of Moscow called Three Stations for the railway terminals gathered there. Plus the converging forces of two Metro lines and ten lanes of traffic. Passengers pushed their way like badly organized armies through street vendors selling flowers, embroidered shirts, shirts with Putin, shirts with Che, CDs, DVDs, fur hats, posters, nesting dolls, war medals and Soviet kitsch."

Maya is a 15-year-old who arrives on a train at Three Stations only to find her three-week-old baby is missing. She has escaped her captors who were going to give away the baby, but she has no clue how to find her and there are two men searching for Maya. Zhenya is trying to help her but she doesn't know who to trust. 

My thoughts...

For the most part, the author keeps the story moving, but there are places where it is more slowly paced. Smith's stories seem to be less about the mystery or crime and more about the state of Russia and the state of Arkady Renko's life. Smith's writing is beautiful.

Life in Russia is not depicted as very appealing; there are depressing moments and a good bit of violence. This book was fairly short, at 241 pages, and I liked that length.

Between the two story lines, one about the investigation of the death of a young woman, the other following Maya and Zhenya and the search for the baby, I was more invested in the secondary one, which was given less time. The ending was very good, satisfying and moving. 

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Publisher:   Simon & Schuster, 2010
Length:       241 pages
Format:       Hardcover
Series:        Arkady Renko, #7
Setting:       Moscow, Russia
Genre:        Police procedural
Source:       I purchased this book when it was published.

Tarnished Icons: Stuart M. Kaminsky

This is the eleventh novel in Stuart Kaminsky's Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov series, set in Russia in the late 1990's. Many things have happened in Rostnikov's life since the end of Blood and Rubles. Since suffering an injury to one leg during combat in World War II, he has had difficulty walking and the condition was worsening. He now has an artificial limb and is getting used to it.

Rostnikov and his team in the Office of Special Investigations have a new boss, Igor Yakovlev, formerly of the KGB. And Rostnikov's son, Iosef, has decided to join the police and is working with Rostnikov's team. There are continuing changes in the lives of other members of the team. There have been tragedies, changes for the better, and challenges in their lives.

As usual, the team has several cases going at one time. The Office of Special Investigations is given the most difficult cases. Rostnikov's wife is Jewish and thus his son, Iosef, is half-Jewish. In Russia, this has sometimes causes problems in their lives. Now Rostnikov is asked to find out who is killing Jews in Moscow. In the most recent occurrence, three men from a new synagogue were gunned down. Other cases the team is investigating are a serial rapist who is called "the Silent One" and a bomber who is protesting the unsafe use of nuclear power.

This is a another series where the lives of the police team are just as interesting as the solution to the crimes. In Tarnished Icons, we get more background on all of Rostniknov's team. The crimes and their solution are interesting, but more in the context of the changes in Russia at the time.

Rostnikov is the do-it-yourself type. During the course of this story, in addition to hunting down the killers, Rostinikov helps the rabbi of the synagogue put heating ducts in. He is good at fixing things and teaching himself how things work. He is a self-taught plumber, and he  finds the work relaxing. He handles all the plumbing problems in the building he lives in. And there are many.

The nature of life in post-communist Russia as depicted by Stuart Kaminsky is grim. Crime is more common and bureaucracies and power struggles make a policeman's job difficult. The challenges of earning enough money to live and getting adequate housing, for example, are constant thorns in the side of the people  Sometimes the books have left me a bit depressed, although Rostnikov always has a positive approach to life. But this book left me with a very good feeling, and I look forward to the next one.

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Publisher:   Ivy Books, 1997
Length:      277 pages
Format:      Paperback
Series:       Inspector Rostnikov, #11
Setting:      Moscow, Russia
Genre:        Police Procedural
Source:      I purchased my copy.

Hard Currency: Stuart Kaminsky

Hard Currency (1992) by Stuart Kaminsky is the 9th book in a series featuring Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov, a police investigator in Moscow, and the team that he works with. When the series started, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was still in existence. This book, published in 1992, and the previous one, Death of a Russian Priest (reviewed here) address the changes in Russia following the dissolution of the USSR, and specifically how this affects this police team.

This book is especially interesting because Rostnikov and one of his staff, Inspector Elena Timofeyeva, go to Cuba to investigate a murder. Or, in reality, the goal of their trip is to find that the Russian citizen accused of the murder is in fact the murderer. To rubber stamp what has already been decided both in Cuba and Russia. This, of course, does not sit well with Rostnikov.  And the situation gets more complicated once they are in Cuba.

Meanwhile, there are two other investigations going on in Moscow, carried out by the remainder of Rostnikov's team: Emil Karpo, a very scary, very serious man nicknamed the Vampire; and Sasha Tkach, a younger member of the team. One case is related to the death of a visiting foreign minister from Kazakhstan. The other is a very difficult case involving a serial killer. At this time in Russian history, those in power do not want to admit the possibility that such a criminal exists in their country. Thus, for a long time, there were no attempts to tie the crimes together, which could have helped solve the crime. By the time all the data is available, it is hard to find any pattern in the killings.

I find these books most enjoyable for the development of the characters. The cases are interesting, but are not as compelling for me as the relationships and the setting. Secondary characters are also well defined.

In this series, we get a picture of the backgrounds of all of these characters without their personal lives overpowering the plot. I have read all the books in this series to this point, and I plan to read the rest in order. However, as far as this book goes, it could be read as a standalone.  The background provided is enough to prevent any confusion in following the characters and their relationships.

I cannot speak from firsthand knowledge about how accurate the depiction of either Russia or Cuba at this is, but this is what Ed McBain had to say about the book: "Kaminsky gets Russia right, and Cuba right, but best of all he gets his superb cop Rostnikov altogether right yet another time. Bravo!"

Kaminsky was a very prolific writer. He is known for several long-running series of mystery novels and other non-fiction titles and stand-alone novels. My earlier post featuring two of his books has some more information on his other series.

You can see a list of his novels at Stop, You're Killing Me!

There is a brief bio at Mysterious Press.