Martin Cruz-Smith
Gorky Park is the first of the Arkady Renko series – 2 others set in the Soviet era, and three after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The book is as much a story about people and places as it is a crime thriller. The book starts with 3 bodies found in Gorky Park, in Moscow, with their faces and fingertips cut off. The investigation is led by Arkady Renko, who, after initial attempts to pass the case on to the KGB, sets out in dogged pursuit of the killer.
Renko, the son of a famous general, battles his own demons as he plods through a bureaucracy that is rife with politics and corruption. Through the characters, the author manages to bring to life the character of Russia itself, from Moscow to Leningrad to Siberia.
In a milieu where even a slight tone of dissent causes a person to be labeled as mentally disturbed, and procedures to be carried out on him to cement the case, Renko’s tenacity and his stubbornness to not let go of the case until the killer is brought to justice, ensures that he makes powerful enemies, who try everything to take him out.
And while the mystery gets solved, we also find the human yearning for freedom and the paradox of wanting to be in a place where one belongs.