Red Square: A Novel

The entry to this series, Gorky Park, introduced Arkady Renko as a sympathetic and very Russian character, who was a investigator for the Moscow militia when he ran afoul of the powers that be. Faced with a choice of doing the right thing and being true to a woman that he loved he made the wrong career move. The second entry to the series, Polar Star, was released 8 years later in 1989 and takes place after Arkady was confined and undergoing psychiatric rehabilitation. Busted out by a KGB friend/adversary, Arkady led the powers that be on a not so merry chase across Siberia before ending up on a Soviet factory fishing ship where his investigative skills came in useful for the state and he ended the book actually in good graces with his government. Red Square came out three years later in 1992 and the author shows increasingly smooth and nuanced writing skills that he has gained over the years. As the book opens the USSR has undergone a leadership change and as a result of loosening and opening up Renko is invited to return to his old job. He quickly falls from grace as an informant in his current investigation of black market excesses is killed and signs of high level collusion come out. Russia is in turmoil, central authority is floundering, the normal people are going hungry, the stores and shops are empty while the newly emergent Russian mafia is thriving. Corruption is rampant as more than a few citizens embrace capitalism with a passion. At black markets stacks of luxury items from the west are available for anyone with the riches needed to purchase them. The Soviet Union's various republics, seeing the confusion in the capital, are seizing the opportunity to break free and the fear of a violent crackdown spreads. Soviet society seems to be collapsing. This is the setting for a skillfully crafted, novel with fully fleshed characters, spot on world building and, as always, Arkady Renko remains one of the more appealing protagonists in modern crime fiction.

“Red Square” by Martin Cruz Smith is one of Smith’s Arkady Renko series. It is a police investigator story set in Moscow, Munich and Berlin during the final days of the crack-up of the former Soviet Union in the summer of 1991. There’s lots of killing, blowing people up, car wrecks, chases, stabbings and other murderous mayhem, all of which surrounds a kind of ridiculous love story between Arkady and Irina (and Max).There are the usual number of near-misses, serious injuries and hand-wringing intrigue, including double-cross episodes and lots of strange names to work your memory muscles over. There’s plenty of ethnic racism toward just about everyone but especially at Chechens, overt negativity about life in Russia, jealous contrasts between East and West, and overall a grand abundance of way too many pages in a story that should have ended long before it did.It’s too long with too many twists and turns, too many miraculous escapes and too many characters. The in-depth look at the differences between Americanized Western Europe and the disastrous results of 50 years of Communism in the East are stark and for the most part realistic. There is no humor as well there might not be in a story such as this. In sum, it was a very American story.Nonetheless, I liked the writing, I liked Arkady and his dilemmas, and I admired the intricate scenarios and the extensive travelogue-style visits to the 3 cities. As police detective stories go, this one is quite good. And yet, I could not help but compare author Smith to the Norwegian great contemporary writer, Jo Nesbo, who writes about similar people in Norway and has his own series of detective stories (the Harry Hole series). Smith is no Nesbo. However, I will try another by Smith.One learns, interestingly enough, about art and art history, as well as life in pre-Putin Russia. The words “Red Square,” it seems, stand for much more than the well-known plaza in front of the Kremlin.All-in-all I give it a 4.4, rounded down to an Amazon 4. It was entertaining, if a bit gruesome and at times just silly.

This is a beautifully written book, more so because it has no literary pretension. Red Square is written as entertainment, and yet it is wonderfully literary, full of rich atmosphere, multi-faceted characterization and intelligent dialogue. To read it is to steep yourself in the cynical, contradictory, dysfunctional world of Soviet Russia, as seen through the character of criminal investigator Arkady Renko, a man simultaneously compelled to rebel against a corrupt system while being psychologically incapable of divorcing himself from it. It is this kind of contradiction that gives Renko his depth, and it is the wonderful dialogue Smith writes for him that gives him his appeal. Renko is the kind of person who never says anything that has only one meaning. When a customs agent at an airport remarks to him that he must be “anxious to go home,” he responds in his typically enigmatic way, “I am always anxious when I go home.” Renko is always the smartest person in the room, and always the person least invested in having people know that. He is someone who prevails not because he is stronger or more intelligent than everyone else, but because he understands his shortcomings better than his opponents understand theirs. Meanwhile, Smith peppers his prose with human insight and poetic description. Renko realizes that there’s a restaurant beyond a hedge, for instance, when he hears “the chatter of cutlery” from the other side. As for plotting, yes, there’s a plot. You have your KGB agents, your Russian mobsters, your fanatic Communists and your corrupt officials. Most of them end up dead, some as the result of particularly unpleasant experiences. There are a number of surprises and plot twists, a thread of romance and a smidgen of sex. What this book is really about, though, is a fascinating, complicated character who, in the process of making his way through a world that is painfully familiar to him, reveals a world that is refreshingly alien to us.

Red Square is a brilliant crime thriller with plenty of exciting, page turning action scenes. The story is set in the days leading up to the attempted coup d'etat in the Soviet Union in August 1991; a period of political and economic change and social unrest.The plot opens with the gruesome murder of Rudy Rosen, a banker to a number of Russian Mafia gangsters operating in Moscow ... and one of Inspector Arkady Renko's informers. Now I should mention that there are a few gruesome murder scenes in this story so if you are at all squeamish, you may want to skip over a few paragraphs from time to time as the descriptions of the murders leave little to the imagination. The plot becomes increasingly complex as Renko's investigation into Rudy's murder unfolds. In addition, while the story starts a little slowly, the pace of the novel picks up dramatically once Renko's investigation takes him to Munich and Berlin and back to Moscow for its very dramatic conclusion.I particularly liked two other aspects of this novel; it's characterisation and the atmospheric descriptions that give it its credibility. Many of the characters in this novel are incredibly lifelike and you can easily imagine them as real, if somewhat unpleasant, individuals. The dialogue is also very realistic. However, it is the emotional aspects of Renko's character that shine through in this novel with his unresolved conflicts concerning his famous father and his undying love for Irina, a woman he had helped escape from Russia to the West and who now reappears in his life. One minor aspect of this story I found a little less credible though is Renko's seemingly superhuman powers of recovery from some life-threatening injuries he acquires in the course of his investigations.The settings are very atmospheric, particularly when portraying the differences between living standards in Germany and Russia at that time.Overall, I found this a terrific thriller but would definitely recommend that if you are not aware of the social and political situation in the Soviet Union around this time, you may want to familiarise yourself of them via a search on Wikipedia or Google to fully understand the final scenes for this story.

This book was a feast for me; encapsulating as it does so many of my favourite elements. Russia, of course, the eternal enigma, Germany shortly after the reunification, and best of all, the looting of art during World War Two.Renko, a man at home in Russia but resentful of being so, is after answers. A small time racketeer is killed and Renko has his mission. Not that the man held any special place in Renko’s affections but the manner of his death is too outlandish to ignore.A large part of the book takes place in Germany. Smith shines a light on Germany such as I have never seen before. Juxtaposing Germany’s rampant capitalism against Russia’s strange mix of communism and perestroika reveals aspects of the most powerful country in Europe that I had never considered. The attitude towards East Germans, the sense of entitlement that comes with a country that has risen from the ashes and the wariness of outside interference into their Utopia.If I had a criticism, it would be that Renko has more lives than a cattery. Do you remember those old films that would end on a cliffhanger with the good guy just a few feet away from certain death? And then when the next instalment starts, there is fifty extra feet and five extra minutes added? That doesn’t distract from the book; it’s an amusement if anything. The sense of place throughout is captivating and the quality of writing never wavers. I’ve just started Gorky Park. Back where it all began.

I so want to like this series but I never thought "Gorky Park" the first of Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko stories was all that it was cracked up to be, only two stars from me. But I persevered with MCS and his maverick [when aren't they] investigator and gave the combo another go, and thoroughly enjoyed the second book, the five star "Polar Star", so I came back for another go, albeit with a mix of apprehension and hope, and took on number three "Red Square".And I was right to be apprehensive because by the end of the first chapter I'd lost hope. To be fair to MCS he has an evocative writing style and weaves intricate plots, which can work (as in "Polar Star") or spectacularly fail, and this time it's the latter; "Red Square" is too long, unnecessarily complicated, horribly confusing and all told a bit boring.Now you can read the a plot summary elsewhere, as I did after I'd finished the book to try to understand what had gone on, but I'll save you the bother with my version......this time Arkady Renko has to deal with lots and lots of bad guys and bad girls, including some you thought were good guys but are really bad guys, all with confusing names but most of them end up dead so you don't have to remember them for long, and then there's some paintings and some other mostly forgettable stuff, and he goes to Munich and Berlin and then back to Moscow and then the book stops as things get interesting.And that's about it really, two stars.

I just love this author. His writing is amazing but not to be skimmed over or rushed. The incredible details about Russia and its history are just mind boggling. It’s a book in which to immerse yourself in order to understand the hero, his country, it’s customs and it’s history. Arkady Renko, investigator, is a self effacing and often flawed character with a firm sense of what’s right and what’s wrong. He is a hero , surrounded by corruption and oppression , who fights for survival. It is not a blockbuster page turner that you can rush through. Allow some time to appreciate and wonder at how Martin Cruz Smith acquired such detailed knowledge of both Russia and Germany and wove it into a great story.

Like many people I like this genre. Rankin, Connelly ,Harris many others. In my opinion Arkady Renko is the best of the detectives. Martin Cruz Smith also gives us a history lesson of Russia without us realising it. This book, Red Square, is possibly his masterpiece. It tells of the collapse of the Soviet Union after Gorbachev and before Putin. It is quite beautifully written and the love story between Renko and Irina is the background to his investigation of terrible crimes. In the far background is Renko's father, A general and "hero of the Great Patriotic War", and his mother married to a monster. I'm reeding this series for the third time now. That's how good they are.