Independence Square: Arkady Renko in Ukraine

Detective Arkaday Renko—“one of the most compelling figures in modern fiction” (USA TODAY)—risks his life when he heads to Ukraine shortly before the Russian invasion to find an anti-Putin activist who has mysteriously disappeared.Martin Cruz Smith has written nine previous novels featuring Arkady Renko, one of modern detective fiction’ s most popular characters.

These novels, beginning with 1981’s international sensation Gorky Park, have collectively traced Russia' s evolution over the last half-century.Now, with Independence Square, Smith focuses on the fraught and frenzied days leading up to Vladimir Putin’ s war against Ukraine.