The female victim is wearing ice skates, reported missing in February by a former student dissident Irina Asanova, a girl from Siberia, working as a prop manager for Mosfilm.

To identify the victims and uncover the truth, he must battle the KGB, FBI, and the New York City police as he pursues a rich, ruthless, and well-connected American fur dealer. By PETER ANDREWS; Peter Andrews, a contributing editor to Saturday Review, frequently reviews adventure novels. He finally identified Osborne as his brother's killer, but was overcome by Osborne's attack dogs when he came to confront him.Arkady's problems escalate when his partner is shot to death investigating Davidova's apartment, and Kirwill's elder brother William, a detective with the New York City Police Department who speaks fluent Russian, arrives in Moscow intending to find and kill his brother's murderer.

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. This can be done well, emphasizing just here and embellishing just there, so the empty spaces also fill in the canvas. 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.Bear in mind this supposedly takes place in the late 1970s, when the Soviet Union's heady economic, scientific and military victories of earlier years were becoming distant memories. You are dealing with hard-boiled, crime fiction set in an alien/totalitarian landscape with sympathetic characters. Arkady gains the upper hand by releasing several of the sables, causing Osborne to rush recklessly into the pen where Arkady is able to shoot and kill him.

While I quite like the stylish 1983 film adaptation by British director Michael Apted (with Helsinki standing in for Moscow, as Western film crews could not film in Russia in those days), the novel is an ever deeper and richer fictive experience – a marvelous way for post-Cold War readers to be, for a time, back in the U. Oh, it's a fine inventive entertainment for a mystery, with a lot of twists and near death escapes, tons of corrupt cops and officials, and so many betrayals and hidden motives I am amazed the body count wasn't higher considering the undrained swamps that Renko wades through in not just Russia, but also in New York City. In describing wiretapping by the KGB of foreign hotels: "The French all complained about the food, and the Americans and English all complained about the waiters. Despite being born into the nomenklatura himself, Arkady exposes corruption and dishonesty on the part of influential and well-protected members of the elite, regardless of the consequences.

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. In many ways, 99% of conversations of the time either consisted of (1) backhanded humor or (2) dark innuendo. Now we have our main characters and the scene – the Soviet Union of the Cold War, with all of the secrecy, informers and intrigue that we expect. Gerasimov, who could reconstruct a human face from the bones and tissue left behind after the flesh decayed, and had done so in the case of historical figures like Ivan the Terrible. I understand I can change my preference through my account settings or unsubscribe directly from any marketing communications at any time.