i13320658 |b1080000561547 |dculmb |g- |m241024 |h8 |x3 |t2 |i1 |j18 |k010628 |n10-16-2023 20:37 |o- |aPS3569.M5377 |rG6 Chief Inspector Arkady Renko is tasked with solving the murders of three people found in Gorky Park, their bodies frozen and killed weeks earlier, hidden by the snow. Their faces have been mutilated and fingertips removed to hinder identification. The story follows Arkady Renko, a chief investigator for the Moscow militsiya, who is assigned to a case involving three corpses found in Gorky Park, a large urban park in Moscow. The victims - two men and a woman - were shot, and have had their faces and fingertips cut off by the murderer to prevent identification. There are not many road signs in Russia, you know.’ He laughed. ‘If you don’t know where the road goes, you shouldn’t be on it.'” — Arkady Renko In 2016, the Strand Magazine named Gorky Park one of the top five Cold War spy novels. [7] The Guardian said that "the book's depiction of contemporary Soviet life was so alarmingly accurate, it was soon banned in the Soviet Union" and "became popular with dissident [Soviet] intellectuals." Gorky Park was awarded the Crime Writers Association's Gold Dagger award in 1981. [8]

Smith says with two young children and a flat in New York City, money was nearly always a problem. "I was making less money each year so I bought a movie magazine to figure out what the hell people wanted. There seemed to be lots of killer animals, sharks, bees. I'd seen a newspaper report about vampire bats so I wrote up a story with vampire bats and some Hopi shamanism and my agent sold it within a day." 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. Renko is a brilliant investigator. Dangerously so. He cares more about solving crimes than laminating his Communist Party membership card. This is a source of consternation to his wife, who begins an affair that humiliates him. The KGB has put a man in his team of detectives. Meanwhile, Iamskoy, the Moscow town prosecutor draws him close, offers protection and tries to demonstrate some of the benefits of playing the Party way. Renko is a guest at the prosecutor’s dacha, and in another sequence accompanies him to a secret bathhouse – one built for Joseph Stalin’s pleasure – where he eats caviar and drinks champagne with aging communists. There he meets a rich, powerful American fur dealer called Osbourne who seems to have the key to the city. But Smith has always had a strong interest in writing fiction that crosses cultural boundaries – his early writings included a series of mystery novels that featured a Romani or “gypsy” art dealer turned detective – and Gorky Park certainly follows in that tradition.Even though this has plenty of Soviet political intrigue and an international aspect to it this doesn’t feel like a spy story, and that’s mainly because of Arkady Renko. During this reread I found myself comparing Renko to one of my favorite fictional detectives, Matt Scudder, because they’re both pragmatic men who don’t see the point in fighting a system that’s inherently corrupt, but there’s a quiet streak of idealism in both that believes that some crimes have to be answered for. Renko is stubborn with a sly talent for screwing up the plans of powerful people, and there’s a great worn down but not beaten element to the character. In describing Arkady's meeting with an agent of the KGB: "[the KGB agent] might even start with a joke, establishing a fresh, more amiable relationship, perhaps describing their current misunderstanding as purely institutional. After all, the KGB was maintained out of fear. Without enemies, real or imagined, outside or within, the whole KGB apparatus was pointless. The roles of the prosecutor's office, on the other hand, were to demonstrate that all was well..."

There are scenes of meetings between nefarious officials and underworld characters which made no more sense to me than they did to Renko, other than establishing confusing relationships or misdirections as to with whom Renko is friendly. Later, in America, Renko is manhandled and passed around in the custody of the FBI, the New York City police, the KGB, and a rogue triple agent. I am still scratching my head over the supposed reason for the Soviets to allow Renko to travel to America and the Big Finish reveal. It did not ring true at all. aRenko, Arkady |c(Fictitious character) |0https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/nb2021005279 |vFiction. |0https://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh99001562 Although the authenticity of Gorky Park is often praised, Cruz Smith spent only two weeks in Russia researching the book, relying mostly on libraries and interviews with Russian immigrants in the United States for the details about life in Cold War Moscow. [9] Film Adaptation [ edit ] What follows is not just damn fine crime fiction, but an examination of the communist revolution, the good, the bad and the ugly of human nature regardless of ideology and finally a study of the juxtaposition of us and them. He went into the follow-up, Stallion Gate, which pits science against traditional native American beliefs, "very pro the Indians and anti Los Alamos and the use of the bomb. But I went to Los Alamos and all the people there wanted was that I tell their side of the story and after arguing a lot with them about the use of the bomb, I ultimately sympathised much more than I had expected. "

Need Help?

While recovering in the hospital under armed guard, the KGB interrogates Arkady. From their questions, Arkady infers that Iamskoy was a KGB agent planted to spy on the militsiya. Once Arkady recovers, he is delivered to a KGB general who explains everything and offers him a deal. The three murder victims weren't helping Osborne build a piece of furniture, they were helping him trap live sables for illegal import into the United States. Rather than help the trio defect, Osborne killed them. The FBI reaches an agreement with the KGB: Osborne will release the sables if Arkady is delivered to Osborne in the United States. Christopher MacLehose was Smith's UK publisher and had previously overseen the respected Collins crime list. He recalls that Alistair MacLean, Desmond Bagley and Hammond Innes were the bestselling authors of the day. "But very suddenly their approach to the genre seemed to give way," says MacLehose. "A new type of novel emerged with Martin Cruz Smith. Gorky Park was an utterly original idea that was brilliantly executed." While Arkady's relationship with his father, General Renko, is strained, he decides to pay him a visit in the hope of learning more about Osborne. Known as "The Butcher of Ukraine" and "Stalin's Favorite General," General Renko recalls that Osborne, as a representative of US intelligent services, was embedded for a time in the Soviet Red Army during World War II. On one occasion, Osborne interrogated three S.S. Officers, shot them in cold blood, and removed their fingertips.