Great

Red Square is the third book in the Arkady Renko series, the first two being Gorky Park and Polar Star. The story is set during the days leading up to the August Coup of 1991, which led to the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Arkady Renko, finally returned to Moscow from exile, investigates the murder of a black market "banker". His investigation leads him from Moscow to a newly-unified Germany, where he grapples with art smugglers, the Chechen mafia, and hostile compatriots. Along the way he is reunited with his long-lost love, Irina, from Gorky Park.

In the first two books the Communist Soviet regime was an ever-present antagonistic force that worked against Renko nearly as much as the actual criminals he fought. In Red Square, even though this force is still evident and still dangerous, its power is diminished.

While this was not the best entry in the series, it was still enjoyable. Martin Cruz Smith did a good job giving the reader a sense of Russian life in those bleak and tumultuous times. It will be interesting to see where the series goes from here.


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Rules. Cruz Smith is off the charts good here. ( )

This is the third Moscow detective Arkady Renko novel; Gorky Park being the first (which I'm reading now). Started slow, for me, but then just became wonderful. The Berlin Wall has fallen but the Soviet Union is still lumbering along. A violent murder in Moscow sends Renko to Munich, which was a great treat for me. Mostly excellent writing, great characters, love, travelogue, and fascinating times. ( )

This is the third Renko book and it was OK. It has to do with the black marketing of artwork, though it took awhile before that becomes clear. Part of the mystery is the question "Where is Red Square?" which Arkady hears on the phone of a recently murdered black market money launderer. The "red" herring is the misunderstanding of the word "square" in Russian versus English. Anyway, not to give too much away -- it is all figured out by the end.

A very good representation of the chaos in Russia after the fall of the Iron Curtain. ( )