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Book ReviewsRed Square |
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Book: Red Square
Written by: MARTIN CRUZ SMITH |
Publisher: Random House Audio
Average Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5
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Another riveting Arkady Renko tale...
Rating:
4 / 5
Red Square is the third Martin Cruz Smith mystery in the Arkady Renko series. After Polar Star, Renko finds himself back in Moscow and restored to his former position as an investigator. The Soviet Union is on the brink of collapse, and five or six different groups of Russian Mafia are vying for control in Moscow. One man, Rudy Rosen, is a tie to these many groups as he serves as a "banker" to them all. He also is an informer for Renko. When Rosen is brutally murdered, Renko has the difficult job of trying to find the killer.
Renko's search takes him from Moscow to Germany, where the possible suspects include gang members, the KGB, a Russian businessman and even a Russian prosecutor. There are many shady situations in Russia as communism begins its freefall, and the waters are definitely clouded. But Renko is extremely intelligent and also, very observant. Through hard work and perseverance, the waters start to clear for him.
Reading about this period of Russian history is always fascinating. It is also interesting to read how Radio Liberty (sponsored by Americans) broadcast out of Germany. This was the only way Russians could discover what was really happening in the USSR.
My only complaint about Red Square is that it seemed rather disjointed for the first one hundred pages or so. It was often difficult to keep characters straight and to follow the plot. But things really picked up halfway through, and the remainder of the book was riveting. I couldn't put it down.
So while I think Red Square fell just a little short of Gorky Park and Polar Star, it is still a fine effort by Cruz Smith.
Renko returns to a changed Russia
Rating:
4 / 5
Martin Cruz Smith's conflicted hero Arkady Renko, homicide inspector for the Militia is back patroling a different beat. After shaking off the 70 year old yoke of Communism, Russia's economic landscape is vastly different. Capitalism has created the opportunity to make money, some of it legal, some illegal. Renko has returned from exile in Siberia. where he toiled in inhospitable work details. He was being punished for aiding in the defection of a young woman Irina Asanova. While doing so they fell in love. Irina fled Russia but the dutiful Renko returned to meet his fate.
Renko in the course of an investigation enlisted a black market financier Rudy Rosen to act as a mole using a radio transmitter to monitor illegal monetary transactions. When Rosen was incinerated in a blazing inferno while siting in his Audi, Renko launched into action.
Renko ambled his way through an unfamiliar Moscow trying to solve Rosen's murder and stumbled upon a convoluted plan to make mountains of illicit money. In his probe Renko encounters the deadly Chechen mafia, as well as corrupt officials and newly established entrepreneurs all trying to squeeze profits out of the tumultuous new Russian economy. Renko's quest leads him to Germany where he hope to reunite with Irina. Unfortunately she consideres herself foresaken and has moved on.
Cruz Smith in "Red Square" attempts to describe the new Russia which is struggling with the changes that this new wave of capitalism has wrought. As the settings of the novel change to Munich and Berlin we see the differences present in those westernized cultures. Cruz Smith gives us a good sense of the confusion of the Russian people as they have to readapt their philosophies to cope and survive within this altered society.
One of the best...
Rating:
5 / 5
Smith's "Red Square" is a great example of how a novel transcends its genre and becomes a work of literature almost by stealth. Yes, this is a mystery featuring intrepid Moscow Militia detective Arkady Renko, but it is a great deal more. It's a look at a nation gorging itself on capitalism like a starved man at a banquet table. It's a story about patriotism and what it means to love one's country. Renko finds, to his utter disbelief, that the expatriates who escaped communism in the '70s and '80s are no longer the folk heros they once were, and he--a seeming workhorse cog in the Russian machine--may have shown more courage and idealism than they ever did.
It's also a great love story. Almost every mystery has the detective meeting a love interest, but none have ever read so true and the reunion of Renko and Irina. From the early scenes where he in his dilapidated apartment listens to her pirate broadcasts from Germany, to their meeting amid the wealth of post-Cold War Germany this is a romance that genuinely moves the reader.
In the end "Red Square" is simply one of the best. One of the best books I've read, one of the best mysteries to come along in the past 50 years, one of the best socio-political examinations of the Cold War...the list goes on and on.
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