From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 6/23/2007 4:45 AM
Sun, Jun. 17, 2007
Renko shadows a killer in 'Stalin's Ghost'
By CATHY FRISINGER
SPECIAL TO THE STAR-TELEGRAM
Book cover
Book cover

When Martin Cruz Smith introduced readers to Arkady Renko in Gorky Park 26 years ago, the Cold War had been going on for decades. Americans were so used to thinking of communist corruption as dominating every aspect of Soviet life that the idea of a Moscow police detective investigating murders in much the same way as a New York City detective might seemed a revelation.

Arkady was honorable, he was smart, he was pig-headed, and he was a hit.

Two and a half decades later, Russian-American relations seem suddenly to be moving toward a second ice age. What a perfect time for the upright Arkady Renko to make his sixth appearance.

In Stalin's Ghost, Arkady and longtime partner Victor have taken it upon themselves to investigate a potential case of police corruption. The two men they suspect of a murder-for-hire scheme are Nikolai Isakov, a war hero from the battles in Chechnya, and his partner, Marat Urman.

About the same time as they launch their surreptitious investigation, Arkady is assigned to a curious problem: nightly sightings of Stalin's ghost at a stop on the Metro line. "This is a situation of some delicacy," the prosecutor warns Arkady. To some Russians, Stalin is a hero; to others, he is a monster. No one is neutral on the subject, and the apparition can only mean trouble.

Somehow the two cases become entwined, and they touch Arkady's personal life, too (his girlfriend, Eva, deserts him for her former lover, Isakov).

His personal life in tatters, his job gone (the prosecutor fires him for pursuing a lead he doesn't like), and his very life on the line (Arkady takes a bullet to the head), the melancholy detective stubbornly pursues the case to its conclusion.

Unlike some crime writers who pump out three or four books a year, Smith takes his time writing. That care shows in Stalin's Ghost, which has a laudable emotional veracity. The best parts of the story are the portions involving Arkady's "family" -- his pain at Eva's betrayal and, especially, his interaction with the chess prodigy/street urchin Zhenya, who sometimes lets the detective play father to him.

The Soviet Union is gone. Long live Stalin's Ghost.

Stalin's Ghost

by Martin Cruz Smith

***** 5 of 5 stars

Simon & Schuster, $26.95

http://www.star-telegram.com/books/story/139956.html