Gorky Park [Paperback]

I first read this superb book at the tender age of 19 shortly after visiting the (then) USSR and strolling round Gorky park in the snow. I'd seen the film of course and half expected the film to follow it closely but I was wrong. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the film but the book was something else. More twists, more plot, more gruesome and, perhaps most importantly, more Russian.

Times change and the USSR came to an end. Cold War thrillers disappeared from the book shelves and were replaced by an endless cavalcade of serial killer stories and so on. But Gorky Park still gnawed away at me and I read it again. What a great decision!

The book is still as fresh as it was when it first took the literary world by storm with the discovery of the three bodies in the snow still shocking, Comrade Major Pribluda still more than a bit like Dracula, the elusive Irina Asanova still as alluring and the sardonic and world-weary Arkady Renko still the best post-war literary detective.

Whether reading this novel for the first time or reading it again after a long break this book is still a belting yarn. It has thrilling set pieces, careful plot development and has an indefinable Russian melancholy about it. Perhaps that is Martin Cruz Smith's finest achievement, this book feels more authentically Soviet with real Russian people living through real Soviet times, rather than the 2D stereotypes we got used to in so many other novels of the same period.

I first read this book in 1984 and have been re-reading it at intervals ever since. This has to be one of the best novels of its kind in the last twenty years, certainly on a par with the recent works by Robert Harris (Fatherland etc).

The story revolves around the discovery of three faceless, nameless bodies in Gorky Park by a Moscow Militia detective and the trail of corruption he untangles as a result.

I won't reveal too much more about the plot, except to say it doesn't involve any of the usual Western/Russian staples about nuclear missiles, spies etc - read it yourself!

The book was so successful in evoking the atmosphere of the Breshnez regime that the author was allegedly banned for a number of years afterwards - in fact, it took Smith seven years to write the sequel (Polar Star).

It was also made into a more than adequate film with William Hurt.

Martin Cruz Smith is a former journalist and magazine editor. "Gorky Park" is his first novel to feature Arkady Renko, was first published in 1981 and is largely set in the Moscow before the collapse of the USSR. Renko, the hero, works as the Chief Homicide Investigator for Moscow's militia - unlike the KGB, who deal with matters if 'State interest', the militia are more or less the standard police force. Renko, therefore, deals with the 'everyday' murders. Displaying one unfortunate trait for a homicide investigator, however, he has a distinct aversion to corpses - though he has a 100% success rate in clearing cases. Unhappily married and somewhat cynical, he's not quite as active a Party member as his wife would like him to be - something that has also had a negative effect on his career. He also appears to be something of a disappointment to his father, a very famous retired General. Renko's boss, Prosecutor Iamskoy, seems to have a certain amount of affection for him though - the Prosecutor actually won an appeal for a worker wrongly convicted of murder thanks to Renko's work.

The book opens in Gorky Park, first park of the Revolution and favoured above all others. Three corpses have been found buried in the snow and, as a result, have been very well preserved. This means that, initially, the time of death can only be estimated as sometime that winter. All three victims - three men and a woman - were all shot through the heart, with the two men also having been shot through the head. The killer, clearly an expert marksman, also has access to a weapon Muscovites cannot typically lay their hands on. No papers could be found on the bodies, which have also been mutilated - the fingerprints and flesh on the faces has been removed, making a quick identification unlikely. One early lead, however, comes from the ice-skates the victims were wearing...

One of the other detectives assigned to the case, Pasha Pavlovich, had worked with Renko previously. Then, three corpses were found at the Kliazma River in remarkably similar circumstances to the Gorky Park killings. The pair immediately suspect the same individual is responsible in this case. However, as the chief suspect at the Kliazma River was a KGB Major called Pribluda, the pair promptly lost that case to the KGB. As Pribluda - who'd actually taken over the Kliazma River case - makes an early appearance at the scene in Gorky Park and interferes with the corpses, Arkady and Pasha expect the KGB to again quickly snatch this case from them. (Pribluda will, of course, be kept right up-to-date : a third detective assigned to the case, Fet, is a known KGB informant). In fact, as the cases progresses, even Renko thinks it looks more and more like a KGB case...though he suspects they would have little desire to 'solve' it.

Overall, a very good book and well worth reading - for me, it would comfortably rest in the top tier of the murder-mystery genre. Renko is a very likeable character and, probably because of his 'flaws', is very easy to relate with. Recommended.