Murder in Moscow

Arkady Renko, Martin Cruz Smith8217;s much-abused Moscow police detective, is, for a fact, a great character. And durable...

Arkady Renko, Martin Cruz Smith8217;s much-abused Moscow police detective, is, for a fact, a great character. And durable, having now lived through six novels, a trip to Cuba, a sojourn in Chernobyl and now in his latest book, Stalin8217;s Ghost.

Renko is an unwilling hero. He isn8217;t particularly idealistic, or if he is, his idealism is all wrapped up in his professionalism. He can8217;t stand to do anything less than a thorough job. So, near the beginning of Stalin8217;s Ghost, he comes across a crime scene 8212; a man face down at his kitchen table with a cleaver in his neck and a hysterical, blood-spattered wife in the bedroom. Detectives are already on the scene, the woman has confessed, and yet Renko can8217;t help asking questions. He8217;s bothered by the angle of the cleaver, by the casualness with which his associates assume that the glass on the table holds vodka and by the carelessness with which they examine the crime scene 8212; or don8217;t; until Renko arrived, no one checked the corpse for bruises that might show he was held down by someone more powerful and then murdered.

The two detectives will soon become Renko8217;s chief nemeses in a case that involves the man with the cleaver in his neck, several other murder victims, and Stalin8217;s ghost. People on the Moscow subway keep saying they see Stalin standing on a platform of a certain station. Stalin, it turns out, is still quite popular with a lot of Russians. He made the country a world power, they say. He made other countries respect Russia. As the nation drifts now between the control of organised crime and a government that toys wistfully with fascism while failing to provide basic human services, it is easy to see how people might wax nostalgic for a strong ruler whose mass murders are easily ignored as just so much past history. Even Renko, puzzling out a problem, asks himself, with a not entirely straight face, 8220;What would Stalin do?8221;

There are several lines of tension in this smart, fast-moving novel. There is the tension between Russia past and present, between Renko and his girlfriend, and, most engaging, between Renko and himself. Renko is never a violent man, but even this he questions about himself: 8220;Was the difference between him and a killer simply a matter of remembering to carry a gun.8221;

The idea that Renko isn8217;t real, that he is nothing more than a fabrication of Smith8217;s imagination 8212; this is almost impossible to believe. Whatever he is, though, he is always good company, which is more than I can say for myself or many of my acquaintances!