The Arkady Renko Novels: Gorky Park (Series #1) (Paperback)

from SanctiSpiritus

The author introduces the reader to crime fighting in the USSR. In a land of subversion, and deceit, our hero is an earnest, truthful, and non malleable cop. The book captures the nuances of Soviet, and Russian humor. I was literally laughing out loud in the middle of a crime novel. It was fantas...

from tommi180744

A thoroughly good thriller: Lots of plot variation, interesting characters, mystery & convincing scenery, plus no tinkering with 'time' & 'places' (von Lustbader should try to emulate) by a skilled author who knows how to construct a novel that engages the reader's interest from first to last page.

from BruderBane

"Gorky Park" by Martin Cruz Smith is an incredibly well written Soviet-Era, dour, hard-boiled detective novel with reams of insight into the human character and the pain of simple existence in a world of blight and misery. Even though at times Mr. Smith's dogged hero, Arkady Renko, is easily remi...

from mrtall

If there ever, ever were a book that should have ended sooner, this is it. Gorky Park is, for 80% of its span, a first-rate murder mystery set in an exotic, almost other-planet-like setting, i.e. Moscow in the early 1980s. The story kicks off with a brutal slaying of three ice skaters in the epon...

from GeoffSC

A gripping, subtle crime novel set initially in Russia. No many clues at first, but with the investigator Arkady Renko powers of deduction, the vital truth is gleaned along the way. I absorbed a bit of Russian history, geography, lore through reading this book.