Red Square: A Novel (Mortalis)
by Martin Cruz Smith
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Book Summary Information
Author: Martin Cruz SmithEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-09-25
ISBN: 0345497724
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of Red Square: A Novel (Mortalis)
Book Review: Not quite the equal of the first two Arkady Renko novels.
Summary: 4 Stars
Earlier this year, I took on the Arkady Renko novels by Martin Cruz Smith for a reread, and to fit in the missing segments of the series that I had missed the first time around. They're an intense, introspective and often brutal look at life in a Soviet Union that is crumbling under corruption and misdeeds, and a man who has somehow managed to hang onto a sense of who he is in the midst of all of the chaos.
In Red Square, Renko has been recalled from exile in Siberia and has returned to being an investigator in Moscow. Not that life is cozy again. For one, Irina isn't there, and Arkady is mourning her loss by listening to her broadcasts on an American sponsored Radio Liberty from a reunited Germany. It's a practice that is certain to drive a man mad, but fortunately Renko has a job that keeps him busy most of the time.
This time, he's involved with Rudy Rosen, a small time black-marketer that Renko has pressured into turning state's witness to trail down some smuggled goods. Sadly the case falls apart nearly as quickly as we get to see it start -- Rudy is turned into a blackened corpse when his Audi blows up in the middle of the black market. Now Renko has an even bigger problem on his hands -- solving Rosen's murder, and finding out that he's still as much in love with Irina as ever.
Then there's the little problem of his father, who has finally died and given Arkady a letter -- a letter that he just as soon would destroy rather than read. Eventually, the trail of all these tangled threads will lead Renko to Munich, Germany, where Radio Liberty and Irina are, and the story grows from there, adding in an American obsessed with WWII and Renko's father, Russian prostitutes tooling about in SUV's, a very efficient German policeman by the name of Schiller, and as always, Irina.
But this time, not only does Irina seem to be involved with someone else, but also she doesn't want anything to do with Renko, and tells him so with brutal effect...
This wasn't my favourite of the Renko novels so far. Unlike the previous two in the series, I didn't get much sense of the time and place. While I could certainly empathize with Renko's difficulties with his father and Irina, and his wanderings through Munich, I didn't feel too involved with the story. Renko too seems like a moving ghost in this one too, detached from everything around him, and while we do get treated to his introspections, it's not nearly as interesting as before.
On the other hand, discovering the various meanings of the term Red Square was interesting. There are excursions into Russian Avant-Garde art, a Russian sex club, and of course, the huge open expanse in front of Moscow's Kremlin. Another prominent feature in the story are cars -- from the various ones that seem to be ready to run Renko down throughout the story, to Tommy's Trabant (surely one of the most inane ideas that ever hit the road), to Schiller's obsession with speed and control on the German autobahn.
But sadly, Red Square doesn't really rise to the occasion. What with all of the zooming about on roads, maudlin mooning after Irina, I never did really understand all of the twists and turns of the smuggling ring and the Chechens. Somewhere along the line, that took a back seat to the Irina subplot, and while I was certainly interested in seeing how that plotline was going to play out, I wasn't too pleased in seeing it take central stage. Too, the body count is high in this one, and at times, it does get messy; the storyline keeps shifting from dead slow to very intense at high speed, and while the writing itself is excellent, it was the story that let me down in the end.
As with most series, while it isn't completely necessary to have read the previous two books, a lot of the underlaying themes will be lost to the novice reader. Smith throws in a little backstory to help, but I don't think that it would be enough to really help the reader understand Arkady's helpless and consuming passion for Irina.
Oh well. Even the best of authors turn out a clunker now and then. While it was good to see Arkady Renko back in Moscow where he belonged, this one lacked the focus of his first two Renko novels. While I will certainly be reading the rest of the series, I doubt that this one will be one that I will be dipping into again.
As with the previous trade paperback releases of this series, there is an afterword. This is an interview between the author and Don Swaim, which goes into a little about writing Red Square.
Three and a half stars rounded up to four stars. Recommended only if you are a fan of the character or Smith's writing.
Summary of Red Square: A Novel (Mortalis)
Back from exile in the hellish reaches of the Soviet Union, homicide investigator Arkady Renko discovers that his country, his Moscow, even his job, are nearly dead. But his enemies are very much alive, and foremost among them are the powerful black-market crime lords of the Russian mafia. Hounded by this terrifying new underworld, chased by the ruthless minions of the newly rich and powerful, and tempted by his great love, defector Irina Asanova, Arkady can only hope desperately for escape. But fate has something else in store.A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
?Extraordinary.?
?Time
?Sharply, evocatively written and elaborately plotted . . . [Red Square] should find as many friends as did Gorky Park.?
?The Washington Post Book World
?Gripping . . . Smith at his best.?
?The Wall Street Journal
?A crackling suspense thriller.?
?The Boston Globe
?Fascinating . . . powerful.?
?The Philadelphia Inquirer
?Absorbing.?
?The New York Times
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