The Arkady Renko series from Martin Cruz Smith has to be the most chronologically dispersed series I have ever seen. It began with Gorky Park in 1981 and has continued up to 2010 with Three Stations, and in those 30 intervening years there have been only seven novels total. But true to the old adage, “good things come to those that wait,” fans of Martin Cruz Smith and Arkady Renko have been well rewarded over the years. These things are good. To be more precise, the one installment I’ve read is good, but that bodes well for the rest of them, especially considering I came in on the tail end of the series.The novel is Stalin’s Ghost, and it’s the sixth Arkady Renko book. Renko is an investigator with the Moscow prosecutor’s office, an honest and principled man in what is arguably one of the most corrupt police forces in the civilized world. He’s soft spoken and reserved, hardly ever even carrying his service revolver—strange for a man who happens to be the son of one of Stalin’s top generals in World War II. And because Renko isn’t completely bent like the rest of his colleagues, he’s repeatedly finding himself on the prosecutor’s shit list. That’s why, when there are murder investigations, organized crime trials, and enormous drug busts to be taken care of, Renko is assigned to investigate the recent sightings of Stalin’s Ghost on the Moscow Metro. Everyone at the prosecutor’s office is certain that it’s a hoax, but in an election year even hoaxes can have an effect on the political opinion. The prosecutor wants the perpetrators found and dealt with, lest it appear that he cannot control even the Metro stations in his district. As it turns out, the ghost on the metro has even more to do with politics than they could have dreamed.Renko witnesses one of the “sightings” himself, which pretty much amounts to someone on the train (it’s the last train through at 2 a.m.) standing up and shouting “I see Stalin!” and a bunch of old, blind pensioners falling all over themselves to agree. Renko smells a rat, and that smell elevates to an overpowering stench when he gets off the train to see an “impromptu” shrine has been erected to Stalin with a pair of flaxen haired children reciting a speech and thanking the “benevolent leader” while a video camera rolls and a pair American political advisors look on. He stops the proceedings, confiscates the video tape, and in the process manages to piss off some very powerful people. As the investigation continues, it is revealed that the Stalin hoaxes are being used to foster a spirit of nostalgia for Russian patriotism (and what better patriot than Stalin, the man who killed millions of his own people?) in order to drum up support for a new political party. The lead candidate for this party? An ex-Black Beret and war hero from the most recent conflict in Chechnya. Oh yeah, and did I mention that the same Black Beret stole Renko’s girlfriend, a Ukrainian nurse who did charity work in Chechnya? Yeah, there’s that too. So when the detective begins to investigate said war hero (now working for the prosecutor’s office as well) for a spate of “accidental” deaths of members in his old unit, even Renko has to admit that it’s more the jilted lover in him than pious crusader that motivates him to action. As he digs deeper, a story begins to emerge about what really happened in Chechnya, a story of corruption and greed and murder. There are some other facets to the story, such as a street urchin chess savant, an old chess master, and a lot of reveries about Stalin and the struggle against the Germans in World War II, but those are the basics. Using all of these elements, Martin Cruz Smith crafts a suspenseful, engrossing story like only writers at the top of their game can do. The characters for the most part are realistic, deep personas; the plot is appropriately paced and riveting. The book is also peppered with aspects of Russian history and culture that I found especially enjoyable, lending an aura of Russian grit and authenticity to the book I don’t think it would have had otherwise. But one of the more astounding aspects of the book (to me, at least) is the language Smith employs in his writing. For lack of a better word, it sounds extremely foreign. By that I mean it sounds as if it was written in another language (in this instance Russian) and then translated back into English. Many times a work will lose much of its linguistic nuances upon being translated into another language and as a result sounds a bit more stilted in comparison. In the case of Stalin’s Ghost, the language isn’t stilted, but it is somehow rigid in how it comes together, devoid of slang terms or colloquialisms and extremely precise in its diction. It simply doesn’t sound as if an American wrote it. I read this book as an audiobook, so perhaps some credit is due the narrator in this regard, though certainly not all. I know that’s a really obscure point, but I’m an English nerd, and that’s the kind of thing that makes me salivate.Another thing that makes me howl for joy about this book is the point of view (POV). Yeah, I know I’ve been grinding my axe about POV recently, but I don’t care. This deserves to be said. For all you aspiring writers out there (and even some already published writers), listen up. This right here? Stalin’s Ghost? This is how you do a third person limited POV. Third person limited means of course that the narrator is telling the story from “outside” of the characters but is privy only to the thoughts and feelings of the main character (and sometimes not even that). There are no internal monologues from extraneous characters, no delving into the psyche of anyone else, no breaking up the narrative in order to see what someone else is doing. The narrative style Martin Cruz Smith uses is precise, measured, and artful. It allows the reader to become much more intimate with the main character, to identify with and understand him more fully rather than shooting off on other narrative tangents that are removed from the main thrust of the book. I particularly liked the way Smith handled the narration during Renko’s time in the hospital (he gets shot in the head and is in a coma for a while), which alternates between dream-like flashbacks and snippets of dialogue from the people standing in his hospital room. Since the main character’s eyes are closed and he can only hear what is being said (let alone understand the meaning or identify the people speaking), those sections are populated with only dialogue. No “he said” or “she said,” nothing. Just the dialogue. And as I thought about it, I was even more impressed because the style and syntax there managed to get across critical elements of the story and the emotion of the characters while still staying true to the POV. Maybe I get unduly excited about that kind of stuff, but I can’t help it. I’m an English nerd, remember?As for negatives about the book, I’m going to have to scrape the bottom of the barrel on this one because there simply aren’t many. One thing that was a little irksome was the fact that Renko kept stumbling upon important plot elements accidentally—a murdered body here, an accident there. It wasn’t overly annoying, and some of that is to be expected from a mystery/thriller, so it didn’t impact my enjoyment of the book. Other than that, I really don’t have anything to complain about, which as you probably know is rare for me.The graphic says four stars, but I'm thinking more like four and a half. Stalin’s Ghost by Martin Cruz Smith is an intriguing mystery, a stylistically superb book, and a gripping read. It may not happen in the next month or even the next year, but damn it, I am going read the other books in this series. I can’t help it--I’m hooked.http://readabookonce.blogspot.com/201...
Arkady Renko possesses all the traits of classic noir detectives; he is a loner who smokes too much and sleeps too little, he has a penchant for tough dames who might or might not be in league with the bad guys, and he gets beaten a lot for too little money. But being Russian he is also subject to other, more exotic predicaments that his colleagues in West could hardly imagine. For starters, his father is one of Stalin’s favorite generals whose wartime hobby is collecting ears taken from slain enemies. The general later fell from favor and Arkady himself has seen the horrors of a Siberian gulag. His lover is a cancer-stricken survivor of Chernobyl. And being a doggedly honest investigator, his place in the new Russia, where virtually everything is for sale, is tenuous at best.The story opens with an amusing/sinister scene in which a businesswoman proposes to hire him and his partner to bump off her abusive husband because “that’s how it’s done”. Meanwhile, Stalin’s ghost is seen waving to underground train passengers, and members of an elite Black Berets squad who had served with distinction in the Chechen war start dropping off like flies. Their commander, Captain Isakov, is now a politician running on a neo-Stalinist platform. He couldn’t be bothered with the fate of his former soldiers, and once elected, will be immune from prosecution. In the course of Arkady’s investigations, Smith takes us through fascinating, occasionally surreal detours through capitalist, ostensibly democratic Russia. The businesswoman’s business is a matchmaking agency for Western men who seek Russian women “whose intelligence and education does not get in the way of their femininity”. Flashy (and perfectly legal) mob-run casinos hold chess tournaments for charitable purposes. Professional diggers search for WW II memorabilia on former battlegrounds and stumble upon mass graves of Stalin’s victims. (Mild spoiler)Smith is back in a fine form here --- after the lackluster Wolves Eat Dogs --- and the story moves in a good pace, punctuated by snappy set pieces. In a memorable one, Arkady waltzes with a pretty harpist, a mellow, potentially romantic scene, and then the next sentence that we read is “Arkady said nothing because Tanya had slipped a garrote around his neck and pulled it tight”. The denouement is similarly full of surprises. We have a pretty good idea about the culprits from early on in the book --- it is their original motive that is unexpected (or perhaps not really, as in the new Russia, capitalism triumphs over everything).
Do You like book Stalin's Ghost (2007)?
"Renko can't do anything," Urman reassured Pacheco. "He's hiding from the prosecutor here and disowned by the prosecutor in Moscow. Besides, he's a dead man." (p. 267)This pretty much sums up the entirety of what *I* would call the sixth and best book of the Renko series (Gorky Park) to date, and in my estimation, that's saying something. The theme of Stalin's Ghost is the unwelcome surprise our exhumation of the past can entail, a theme borne out casually throughout a book in which the game of chess can experience a revival, the remains of Kremlin victims can be exposed by a routine extension beneath the Kremlin Supreme Court, optimistic Diggers can excavate human remains at a mass, mined war grave, and the apparition of Stalin hangs over even the veterans of the Chechen campaigns.This book is as droll as it is deep, fully engaging, and a completely fair mystery to boot ('fairness' meaning that all the information is presented for the resolution and delectation of the reader). Still, the what-happened-and-why are wholly secondary to the main message about the consequences of history. Stalin's Ghost can be read in the context of the rest of the series, but can as equally stand alone. The characters are rich, well-developed, and multi-layered and exist in the picaresque, yet so appropriate, obligatory snap-thaw setting.Here's how I think author Cruz Smith intends to synopsize his book (at p. 262):'There is a theory that in really deep lakes a body will sink only to a certain zone, at which point water pressure, temperature, weight and buoyancy balance out and the body hangs in the water.''There could be dozens of them down there just hanging around. The police could go in there with a submarine and solve all sorts of crimes. That is so amazing. What do you call that zone?''I don't know. It's just a theory,' Arkady said, although he did have a name for it: Memory.
—Bruce
"How did you and the investigator meet?""At Chernobyl.""Romantic."This piece of dialogue from "Stalin's Ghost" is a fine example of how Martin Cruz Smith tells his Arkady Renko stories: he never skips an opportunity to add some acid to the backdrop and then pour some sarcasm over it. Perhaps by now, way into the 21st century, we have grown accustomed to sarcasm in the media, it having become a way of life, but Smith still has an exceptional talent for creating bitter concoctions - however, it all still serves the main character's attitudes and way of life. It all feels natural and believable to the point where I feel that, would I have been a police detective in Russia myself, I would be a lot like Arkady Renko (if I could) out of sheer necessity. At some point we "leave Moscow and enter Russia" - it's at these moments when Smith sheds a light on post-communist Russia that the detective story is expanded from a mere crime story to being also a story about people. If you say that should be true of all novels, I guess you have a point, but in the crime genre Smith rises high above the standard. He has that rare talent to turn what's basically a crime story into something larger than that - and of course his long standing reputation (coming a long way since "Gorky Park") confirms that. Additional to all this is of course the ambiance of post-communist Russia, and that's a whole story in itself. It is a tough nation with tough inhabitants and that does a lot for this story about "sightings" of the long dead Joseph Stalin in the Moscow underground, an overture to the unravelling of crimes. I must hand it to Martin Cruz Smith: his hero Arkady Renko has a way of investigating that is highly original and surprises me time after time. Every time you think the man's going to turn left, he turns right. So it's thumbs up for "Stalin's Ghost". See what you think.
—M.H. Vesseur
Policemen carrying out paid hits, a chess grandmaster receiving threatening phone calls and a report of sightings of Stalin's ghost in the Moscow underground: within 50 pages Cruz Smith, writing his sixth outing for the Moscow detective, establishes a classic triangle of mysteries for Renko to solve, which you just know will put him in great danger from all sides.You also know that the plot will some how manage to involve his current lover (Eva) and that all the events will turn out to be connected too, in a way that illuminates some unsavory aspect of modern Russia. In this instance, the Chechnyan crisis.Renko is back in Moscow, but Eva has come with him from Chernobyl and the previous outing, Wolves Eat Dogs. Her ex-boyfriend, a former member of the KBG who fought against the Chechnyans, is running for political office on a populist ticket, with assistance from a couple of PR savvy americans. He is considered a war hero, but something about his story doesn't add up.The plot also involves room for more of Renko's past, room for his adopted chess prodigy son, Zhenya, to become involved and have his back story resolved, as well as plenty of examples of the conflicts inherent as the old regime comes to grips with a capitalist future.The aging police inspector takes a little bit more of a beating in this one than seemed entirely fair, whilst the denouement was a little weak, but Renko is such a good character - always getting more involved than he should, always cynical and sardonic in appraising the Russia he finds himself in - that if this would have been one of the first episodes I had read I would have most likely given it an extra star, but diminishing returns and all that.I will certainly read the next one too.
—Perry Whitford
