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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Arkady Renko's Journey to Chernobyl's Heart of Darkness, 30 Nov 2004
I have read and enjoyed Smith's previous Renko novels. Renko's erratic career path as a police inspector has seen him survive, barely, the apparatchiks of the Soviet regime (Gorky Park). He has survived its imminent demise (Polar Star) and the emergence of bloody cowboy capitalism (Red Square). Now, in Wolves Eat Dogs, Renko must operate in a Russia dominated by an elite group of billionaire oligarchs. The primary setting of Wolves Eats Dogs is the 30-kilometer evacuation (or exclusion) zone in the northern Ukraine, just south of Ukraine's border with Belarus, surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. On April 26th, 1986 the number 4 reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded after a planned test shutdown went seriously wrong. The subsequent release of radioactive material (including massive amounts of cesium and strontium) is estimated to have reached levels exceeding 40 times the amount of radioactivity released by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The short and long term effects of this explosion, particularly on the Republics of Belarus and Ukraine has been devastating. For example, the phrase "Chernobyl Necklace" refers to the ubiquitous ear-to-ear scar worn by Byelorussians and Ukrainians that have had thyroid cancer surgery. The thyroid cancer rate is estimated to be up to 2000 times greater in Belarus than in the general world population. Smith's eye for details makes note of these scars. The Chernobyl disaster has special resonance for me as I have spent five years involved with a Children of Chernobyl program that brings children from Belarus to the United States for six week health and respite visits. The dark world that Martin Cruz Smith portrays in Wolves Eat Dogs tracks remarkably well with accounts I have heard from Byelorussians and Ukrainians about life after Chernobyl. Smith made numerous trips to the exclusion zone and his investment in time and first-hand research bears fruit. It is into that dark world that fate and police work brings Inspector Arkday Renko. A billionaire oligarch, Pasha Ivanov, is found dead outside his high-rise Moscow flat. All evidence leads to the conclusion that Ivanov has taken his own life by jumping from his penthouse apartment. Renko is not so sure and decides to conduct his investigation despite the clear displeasure this evinces up and down the police ladder and amongst the surviving owners of Ivanov's company. In this, Renko's stubborn, principled independence has not changed at all since he first came to view in Gorky Park. When a second related death occurs in the 30-kilometer exclusion zone surrounding Chernobyl, Renko's superiors are pleased to pack him off to investigate the death in the Ukraine. The majority of the action takes place in the exclusion zone. Renko plods on despite himself and despite attempts by virtually everyone to leave things alone. It is impossible to say more about without revealing too much of the plot. However, it seems to be that in Wolves Eat Dogs we have seen Martin Cruz Smith at his finest. Smith does not devote any time to fleshing out the personal side of Renko. However, the similarity between the inner-life of Renko and the stark, despairing, world of the exclusion zone is unmistakable. It is at once a moving and tragic reflection of the life lived by Arkady Renko. Smith's portrayal of Renko, life in the exclusion zone, and his development of the plot from start to finish is first rate. This is a book worth reading.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a welcome return to form, 11 Oct 2005
By A Customer
Arkady Renko returns for his fifth outing and, thank the lord, it's a better effort than Havana Bay. Personally I didn't think Renko worked as a character outside Russia, his anti-hero status just didn't add up in Cuba. This however is class. Renko tracks the murderer of a wealthy 'new russian' businessman from Moscow's plush apartments to the radioactive villages of Chernobyl. The usual outstanding narrative from Martin Cruz Smith, plenty of dark humour and an interesting examination of the 'new russian' phenomenom. Can't recommend this book highly enough. Welcome back Renko.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good on Chernobyl but Weak as a Thriller, 26 Jun 2006
After enjoying the two middle books in the Arkady Renko series (Gorky Park, Polar Star, Havana Bay, and Red Square) I picked up this fifth one with pretty high hopes. The story begins in roughly contemporary times with Renko still hanging on as Senior Investigator in Moscow. When a Russian bazillionaire industrialist takes a swan dive off the 10th-floor balcony of his locked ultrasecure apartment, Renko is called in to rubber stamp the apparent suicide. When the tycoon's friends and business associates all confirm the man's recent depression, and the security cameras show no intruders. However, Renko wants to know what caused the depression, and more interestingly, why one of the apartment closets is full of salt. True to form, Renko stubbornly pursues these lines of inquiry to the frustration and anger of his superiors and the chief of security for the bazillionaire's company. Soon thereafter, the bazillionaire's longtime friend and partner turns up dead in the 30-kilometer "zone of exclusion " which surrounds the Chernobyl nuclear accident site in northern Ukraine.
This provides Renko's superiors with a perfect excuse to exile him from Moscow for a while and punish him by stationing him in the highly radioactive environs of Chernobyl. This is where the book really works -- as a travelogue of Chernobyl some 15-20 years after the accident. Cruz Smith took several trips to the area to learn about the "black villages" and the lives of those who live in the contaminated area. This comes alive in his portrayal of the corrupt militia, the massive chop shop selling radioactive car parts, the underfunded researchers who risk radiation to try and understand the effects of the accident, the poachers who kill radioactive wild boar to sell to Moscow's 5-star restaurants, the old people who snuck back into their evacuated villages to live out their years, and more. He also tells of the chain of incredibly foolish mistakes that led to the disaster, as well as the inept Soviet response to it (including building a town for evacuees on a radioactive site). Eventually, of course, the story of the dead bazillionaire dovetails with Chernobyl, but frankly, it can't compete dramatically with the tragic story of the people in the zone which Cruz Smith tells so well.
As a thriller or crime novel, this installment never really works. The story is too cloudy, the characters too disparate and undeveloped, and the ultimate "answer" comes long after the reader has ceased to care. Renko doesn't evolve at all, he's the same stubborn, fatalistic cop who takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'. Of course, as in the other books, he does manage to find a woman to share his life with. There's also a running subplot involving a mute Moscow orphan who has somehow entered Renko's life. His numerous appearances never seem to add up to anything other than a possible set-up for a future book. On the whole, fascinating stuff about Chernobyl, but that's about it.
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