Gorky Park (Arkady Renko Series) by Martin Cruz Smith

Paperback: Three bodies found frozen in the snow. And the hunt for the killer begins.

It begins with a triple murder in a Moscow amusement center: three corpses found frozen in the snow, faces and fingers missing. Chief homicide investigator Arkady Renko is brilliant, sensitive, honest, and cynical about everything except his profession. 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. Meanwhile, Renko is falling in love with a beautiful, headstrong dissident for whom he may risk everything.

A wonderfully textured, vivid look behind the Iron Curtain, Gorky Park (1981) is a tense, atmospheric, and memorable crime story.

Gorky Park is the first instalment in the Chief Investigator Arkady Renko series set in Russia. There are nine books in this excellent series.

About the author: Martin Cruz Smith is the bestselling author of thirteen novels, including the Arkady Renko thrillers: Gorky Park, Polar Star, Red Square, Havana Bay, Wolves Eat Dogs, Stalin's Ghost, and Three Stations. A recipient of the CWA Gold Dagger award for fiction in the UK, he is also two-time winner of the Hammett Prize in the United States. He lives in northern California with his wife and three children.

Rating: 3/5