1992's "Red Square" is the third of what are now six Martin Cruz Smith novels featuring Russian Investigator Arkady Renko. In "Red Square," Renko returns from exile in Siberia to resume his criminal investigation duties with the Prosecutor's Office in Moscow, only to find that the Russia he left behind is falling apart, almost as fast as Renko himself.

Martin Cruz Smith provides a pitch-perfect portrait of Moscow in the last days of the Soviet Union. Communism is crumbling, replaced by an informal and often criminal free enterprise. Moscow itself is run by ambitious businessmen, rapacious apparatchniks, and various murderous ethnic mafias. A street "banker" used by Renko as an informer suffers a savage death at an marketplace outside Moscow. The stubbornly honest and dedicated Renko begins an investigation that soon leads him into the middle of a complex and deadly conspiracy with roots in the past and the present. The trail of clues, and dead bodies, will lead him from Moscow to Munich and Berlin in the West, and back to a seething Moscow in the midst of a coup.

If the solution to the mystery in "Red Square" is a bit more obvious than is usual in the Renko series, the story makes up for it with the gritty and hauntingly realistic atmospherics of a dying Soviet Union. Arkady Renko, in his own musings, is content to be a surgeon setting broken limbs in an endless catastophe, but fate has other surprises in store for him. Arkady's dying father reaches out to him after years of estrangement. Arkady's long-lost love, the defector Irina Asinova, reenters his life. Arkady finds surprising allies and enemies in strange places.

"Red Square" is very highly recommended to fans of Martin Cruz Smith as a thrilling and well-written entry in the Arkady Renko series.

I own this book and much enjoyed it when it was published in the 90s; in fact I kept every book written by Martin Cruz Smith with Arkady Renko as the hero. To those who know me this is high praise.

What I find unfortunate is that it is being touted as a new book when it is anything but new. In fact I think it is the third Arkady Renko book.

Check your bookshelves before ordering!

First published in 1992, _Red Square_ illustrates the complexities which have emerged as the Russians allow some private enterprise but have not yet become a democracy. Hardliners want to perpetuate their own way of life, while young people and the hungry proletariat want reform and their own piece of the pie. Arkady Renko, who has appeared in two previous Cruz Smith novels (Gorky Park and Polar Star), has returned to Moscow from exile and has resumed his job as a detective, this time investigating corruption and criminal fraud in the city as private enterprise takes illegal turns.

Rudy Rosen, who engages in money-changing, gambling, and other felonies, some of them involving citizens of foreign countries, is cooperating with Renko by allowing him to record conversations. Immediately after Renko leaves Rudy in his car, however, Rudy's car explodes, incinerating Rudy and a suitcase full of cash. As Renko investigates who might have killed Rudy, the complexity of this mystery parallels the complexities of a Russian society in which it's every man for himself in terms of financial transactions.

All the characters are at loose ends, wondering who they are and how they are perceived. Renko is just back from exile, the love of his life having defected to Germany years ago, and she believes that he has abandoned her. Rudy Rosen wants to have it both ways--to cooperate with Renko and to continue his shady dealings. The Chechens who appear in the story are blamed for everything that is violent or illegal, but they remember the horrors of mass relocation and the killings through which the Russians annihilated their villages and left them homeless. As the investigation of Rudy's death leads Renko from Moscow to Munich and Berlin (and to a meeting with Irina, his long lost love), Renko meets with other Russians who live abroad but still regard themselves as Russian.

Renko is a sad case--morose, love-starved, and without any reason for living--and as he tries to do what is right, his essential goodness comes through. As the case becomes an investigation of stolen paintings, many of them owned by Jews at the outbreak of World War II (and earlier), Renko's own superiors and the Russian Mafia abroad threaten his life. The body count rises and who-did-what-to-whom becomes confusing, but many readers will be focused on the character of Renko. As he tries to navigate the minefield of his own life, he resembles a modern version of some of the great Russian tragic heroes. This is not the most unified of the Renko mysteries, but it is fascinating, nevertheless. Mary Whipple

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I read this right after reading An Agent In Place by Robert Littell, who's supposedly equally versed in all things Russian. I'm sorry but Smith blows Littell away in terms of writing talent, evocative descriptions, and intricate plotting. Smith successfully captures the chaos of the days after the '91 coup in Moscow, as well as how Party stalwarts morphed overnight into rapacious capitalists.

Martin Cruz Smith hardly signs like a Russian but his series of Renko novels smell of the cabbage cookin odors universally experienced in Russian apartment stairwells, and the grinding workings of the Russian apartchuk. Having worked in the Siberian Far East of Russia periodically for over ten years, Smith can both assuage and reinforce my homesickness for Russia. Evocative settings, details true to the Russian experience and great story telling keep him on my read and re-read lists.