Arkady renko is the detective Russian protagonist of a series of novels written by the North American author Martin Cruz-Smith. First appeared in Gorki Park, in 1981, and then there have been other 7 titles traditional that have been very successful with critics and the public, in addition to receiving several prizes of the black genre, like Edgar or Hammett. In these days of confinement I have reread some. So there this review goes. For those who do not know it or refresh it for those who do.
Arkady renko
The first thing that attracted me to Arkady Renko was that drawing fatalistic and nostalgic of their character, typical of what they usually call the "Russian soul". And it's funny, being the creation of an American writer with Spanish ancestry like Martin Cruz Smith. Also, upon meeting him in Gorki Park, and because of what happened with his parents, we also understand that tendency to cynicism and self-destruction. But it is also very intelligent, skeptical in the face of positive prospects for the future, especially for him, and at the same time, he cannot help being idealistic, incorruptible, sensitive y honored. He shows it every time he falls in love, even though he may know how much that love costs him.
Your cases throughout the series will take you through others countries, since the United States to Cuba, and other places like Chernobyl. The years will also go by for him, and from the 80 we will arrive at was Putin, where his last story takes place, Tatiana.
Series of Arkady renko
Gorki Park
La first novel it is perhaps the best known. Published in 1981, in it Arkady Renko investigates the appearance of three corpses found in Moscow's Gorky Park. Their faces and fingertips are missing, preventing identification. Renko will discover that the case has international implications. But both the KGB, elite Soviet and a unscrupulous American businessman they want to remove Renko from the investigation. All they get is that he insists on solving it regardless of the personal consequences. And in the middle of it all Fall in love from a woman he doesn't know if he can trust either.
Polar Star
The title is the factory ship name in whose networks appears the body of a girl that belongs to your our crew. And Arkady Renko works on it, what time is it ex-investigatoras he was removed from office for "political reasons" after the Gorky Park case. And although it looks like a suicide, the ship's captain asks you to investigate.
The Red Square
Set after the fall of communism, in this novel Arkady Renko will have to investigate the death of a banker connected to the underworld. And he will meet again Irina Asanova, the woman he loves and met in Gorki Park and that was also the reason for his fall from grace within the system.
Havana Bay
This time Renko will have to go to Havana to identify the corpse of a Russian that has appeared there. Renko will discover a city that he did not imagine like that and that puzzles him. You will also have to work with a beautiful Cuban police, and they will be seen with Santeria rituals, an American fugitive and a group of mercenaries. But you will take a little time to enjoy something of your own life.
Wolf time
El apparent suicide of Pasha Ivanov, one of Russia's new billionaires, is the case that Arkady Renko will have to solve and that perhaps will become the most enigmatic up to now. A case that will lead you to Chernobyl, an environment that will make the investigation more tense.
Stalin's ghost
Again set in Moscow, it tells us about the mysterious phenomenon that occurs when several subway passengers claim to have seen Stalin's ghost in one of its stations. What seems unimportant turns out to be more serious when Renko discovers that two prestigious detectives could be involved. Those supposed appearances are connected with a political party of which one of the detectives is a militant. And that party hides important data about what happened in Chechnya in the 90s. But Renko will also discover other secrets dating back to the Second World War.
The three seasons
The train background, a teenage mother and alone and a soldier with bad intentions towards her, in this novel Renko will have to investigate the disappearance of a baby of which there is no trace.
Tatiana
The last published title tells the coincidence between deaths, in the same week, of a reckless journalist, Tatyana Petrova, and a billionaire mobster. Arkady will keep track of both events in Kaliningrad, "Secret city" of the cold war. And by investigating Tatiana's past, Arkady will find some children abandoned and a notebook of an interpreter who is also dead.