"Polar Star" is the second Arkady Renko novel. In this one, Renko has been kicked out of the Party and more or less exiled to Siberia during the Glasnost-era of the Soviet Union. Renko is now working on a Soviet fishing trawler, not a choice career move. As in the earlier novel "Gorky Park," Detective Renko is an outsider, alienated from the Soviet system and regime, but not fond of Americans or the West. And as in Gorky Park, the Americans are definitely not the good guys.

My main criticism of this novel is that it is bleak and somewhat depressing, and the author's murky writing style contributes to this. On the other hand, the novel has a gritty, authentic feel that makes this one an interesting and entertaining read. Recommended.

The book arrived promptly and in good condition. My only disappointment is that I had ordered a First Edition but when it arrived I found that it was a First Print, Book-of-the-Month Club Edition. Not what I had hoped for.

Following his "politically incorrect" investigation of several murders in Moscow's Gorky Park, the dour but conscientious Arkady Renko has been deprived of his Communist party membership and his job. After escaping from the psychiatric hospital where he was being "treated," he has taken a series of low-level jobs in remote areas of the Soviet Union, trying to stay under the political radar--working in a slaughterhouse, a construction site, and now, on the "slime line" of the Polar Star, a gigantic Soviet fishing ship on the Bering Sea, preparing and freezing fish. Co-operating with the Eagle, a smaller American ship, the Soviets are trying to find common ground for understanding, or so they say.

When Soviet fishermen bring up a netful of fish, they discover the body of a flirtatious young kitchen worker from the Polar Star. The political information officer aboard the ship immediately concludes that she has committed suicide, and the ship "doctor" is unable to determine a realistic time of death. The captain, however, decides he wants a real investigation, and he assigns Renko to investigate the manner and motivation for her death before the ship docks at Dutch Harbor.

Renko is a fascinating character--close to Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov in his feeling of entrapment by a chaotic world--but as he investigates, he begins to develop a sense of purpose, long missing from his life, and he soon discovers that no one and nothing are as they appear to be. The two ships' involvement in spying, counter-spying, smuggling, and drug manufacturing are revealed during the investigation of the young woman's death, and other deaths soon occur. Renko, unwilling to gloss over the truth, makes powerful enemies, both on the Soviet and on the American ship, and though he can accept his beatings by those in charge as a "normal" way of doing business by the authorities, his life, this time, is in mortal danger. Sadly, he accepts this, too, as "normal," and even his own death as inevitable.

Cruz Smith is astonishingly gifted in his ability to describe nature and convey atmosphere, and the cold and the fog near the Arctic Circle add to the bleak mood and the symbolism of an uncaring state. Renko himself, a solitary man, arouses sympathy in the reader as he tries to keep himself going in a system which often "suggests" that he play a different game from what he believes is right. The book lacks a love story to humanize or soften the harsh actions aboard the ship, however, and parts of the story are sometimes confusing. Actions often lead to surprising violence and over-the-top and unrealistic plot twists. This is a fine continuation of the Renko character, however, a character who will later appear in four more Cruz Smith novels. n Mary Whipple

Red Square (Arkady Renko Novels), #3 in the series
Havana Bay: A Novel (Mortalis.), #4
Wolves Eat Dogs (Arkady Renko Novels), #5
Stalin's Ghost: An Arkady Renko Novel, #6
December 6: A Novel
Rose

Mr. Martin Cruz Smith's Polar Star novel is the second book in the Arkady Renko series. The first was Gorky Park, which I highly recommend. Polar Star is a good book that I would also recommend, however I didn't find it quite to the level of Gorky Park.

The novel is set in the late 1980's on a Soviet ship named the Polar Star that is involved in a joint venture with American trawlers fishing the Bering Sea. Renko is working on the ship in what can only be described as despicable conditions. However, when a crew member is found dead, Renko is resurrected as an inspector once again. The pictures that Mr. Smith creates are vivid and colorful. You can easily put yourself into the scenes and imagine what the characters are like.

After reading the first two books in the Renko series I will definitely be reading the rest.

Martin Cruz Smith manages to achieve a whole breathtaking story even in the narrow space of a Fishing Ship.

Martin Cruz Smith has created a detective with a wry sense of humor, an impressive dedication to being an honest policeman, and, he's a Russian militia man. I have enjoyed reading all the Arkady Renko books so far. I think Polar Star and Gorky Park are especially rich in characterizations, descriptions of Russian citizens in pre and post breakup of the former Soviet Union, and an insight into a world with far less comforts for the average citizen than we Americans take for granted. I look forward to more Renko mysteries, even though Gorky Park, Polar Star, Havana Bay, and Wolves Eat Dogs have made it hard to imagine how Smith can top what he's already done.

After eight months of gutting fish on the «slime line» of the factory ship POLAR STAR, Arkady Renko is asked to investigate the mysterious death of Zina Patiashvili, a beautiful and popular young georgian shipmate.

He never has a clear mandate and Renko knows that a murder investigation in the USSR, East of Siberia, on the Bering Sea, when you are not a member of the Party anymore, can only be very perilous. Yet the exiled detective slowly comes back to life, as he digs further and further into the events that led to Zina's death. Riveting.

Polar star is rich with characters, lots of them, adventurers, outcasts and maybe spies even. Martin Cruz Smith traveled to the Bering Sea and to Dutch Harbour in the Aleutians so that the descriptions of sea, earth and ice are chillingly accurate. The idea of this ship, out there in the middle of nowhere, is a stroke of genius and the star of the show. As always, the dialogues are crisp, smart, caustic, a staple of the Renko series.

This one is as good as Gorky Park and Havana Bay. Highly recommended.

After eight months of gutting fish on the «slime line» of the factory ship POLAR STAR, Arkady Renko is asked to investigate the mysterious death of Zina Patiashvili, a very popular young georgian shipmate.

He never has a clear mandate and Renko knows that a murder investigation in the USSR, East of Siberia, on the Bering Sea, when you are not a member of the Party anymore, can only be very perilous. Yet the exiled detective slowly comes back to life, as he digs further and further into the events that led to Zina's death. Riveting.

Polar star is rich with characters, lots of them, adventurers, outcasts and maybe spies even. It seems Martin Cruz Smith traveled to the Bering Sea and to Dutch Harbour so that the description of sea, earth and ice are chillingly accurate. As always, the dialogues are crisp, smart, caustic, a staple of the Renko series.

This one is as good as Gorky Park and Havana Bay. Highly recommended.

Martin Cruz Smith has followed his great Gorky Park with another fascinating look into a segment of Russian life combined with murder, mystery and mayhem. Life on a Russian factory fishing ship in the Bering Strait is hard and dangerous. Another good read.

The second of Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko series. This book is set on a large commercial fishing boat that travels very far north in their operations, hence the name.

There is something dodgy about the crew, and you then get your standard sort of murder mystery crime novel, if you don't mind guilt-ridden dour Russian detectives.