Independence Square

Arkady Renko's mean-spirited boss has temporarily demoted him to desk duty. Renko is a skilled and tenacious detective in Moscow's Office of Prosecution, where competence matters less than deference to one's superiors. Arkady's adopted son, a prodigy named Zhenya, makes his living playing chess for cash in Gorky Park. When Zhenya's friend—a member of a pro-democracy group—is murdered, Arkady is assigned to investigate the homicide. He is also working for free on behalf of a gangster, Fyodor Abakov, who is concerned about the disappearance of his daughter, Karina.

"Independence Square," by Martin Cruz Smith, is biting in its condemnation of murderous dictators who live in luxury while their sadistic minions inflict immense pain on show more innocent civilians. In the course of his inquiries, Renko meets Elena Osmanova, a talented violinist who was Karina's roommate. Arkady and Elena join forces to find Karina and, in addition they hope to identify who is behind the assassination of protestors who dare to speak out against the Russian government.

Smith's prose is richly detailed, atmospheric, and darkly humorous. The author takes us to Moscow, Ukraine, and Crimea before the current war began, and provides background information that sheds light on the book's plot. Arkady and Elena must tread cautiously, because anyone deemed sympathetic to Putin's enemies is likely be interrogated, if not tortured and executed. Arkady Renko is a heroic yet unassuming man who generally gets to the bottom of whatever case he is investigating. As jaded as this veteran sleuth is, however, he is shocked by the grim truths that come to light in the concluding chapters of this fascinating and timely novel. show less

Crimea is Ukraine
Review of the Simon & Schuster hardcover, released simultaneously with the eBook/Audiobook editions (May 9, 2023).

Despite the book's title and its use in the cover art of the Kyiv Independence Square monument* (in shadow background on the cover of the American edition, but more explicit on the cover of the UK edition, very little of the book takes place in Ukraine proper. The novel starts and ends in Moscow, travels briefly to Kviv, Ukraine but then to Russian occupied Sevastopol, Crimea. So the title and the cover imagery (including the yellow-blue colorization of the US cover) is likely more a sign of symbolic support for Ukraine in the current Russia/Ukraine War. The time setting of the book is in 2021, some months show more before the February 24, 2022 Russian assault and further attempted annexation of Ukraine.

The beleaguered Russian police inspector Arkady Renko (who is aging slower in book time than in real time, as he was already somewhat senior in his 1981 Gorky Park debut) starts this 10th book of the series at a desk job in Moscow, again under the thumb of his nemesis Prosecutor Zurin. His journalist girlfriend Tatiana has left Moscow to become a New York Times correspondent in St. Petersburg. He is also showing the first signs of Parkinson's Disease (a condition which the author admits he has been living with for over 20 years in his Acknowledgements).

Renko takes on an unpaid investigation in his spare time to search for the daughter of a somewhat shady character who asks for his assistance. The daughter was part of the retinue of a Putin-opposition leader. Renko makes the acquaintance of a violinist who played in a string quartet with the missing woman. During rallies, the opposition members are harassed by a biker gang of 2014 Crimean War veterans. Then they begin to be assassinated and Renko is officially put on the case.

The official investigation takes him to Ukraine and then Crimea where he uncovers who is behind the assassinations. The ending requires him to escape Crimea before the assassin and their allies can find him.

See photo at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Statue_of_Berehynia.jp...
The figurehead at the top of the Ukrainian Independence Square monument. Image sourced from Wikipedia by Amit just amit - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link.

The conclusion of the book flirted with an Unsatisfactory Ending Alert™, as it stops rather abruptly and leaves the reader wondering about the fates of several of the characters.

Footnote
* Despite its similarity to the 'winged victory' statues of the Greek goddess Nike, the statue on top of the Ukrainian monument is of a Slavic goddess named Berehynia.

Trivia and Link
Despite its avowed 272 page length, the book is only about 200 pages of text due to an average of 2 blank pages worth between each of the 34 chapters. I noted from Audible that the unabridged audiobook edition only requires 5.75 hours of reading time. This type of publisher 'padding' was even more noticeable in the previous book of the series The Siberian Dilemma (2019) where approx. 80 pages worth were blank. show less

Cruz Smith's tenth Arkady Renko novel, Independence Square, moves us from the forests of Siberia in the previous book back to Moscow and as the subtitle says, to Ukraine. This is a book written about events happening now.

Renko is asked by someone he knows, Fyodor Abikov, to find his missing daughter, Karina. He is worried and although Renko is side lined to a desk job, he takes this case on privately. There are many dead bodies in the solving of this conundrum.

Karina is a member of an anti-Putin group known as Forum and plays in a string quartet. Her flatmate Elena also plays in the same quartet and sees her on television in Ukraine standing behind the Governor. Renko heads off to Kyiv with Elena to provide a plausible story in order to show more cross the boundary between the two countries. Once there they track her down and find out her reasons for disappearing. It's just that neither of them believe her.

All of this takes place against the annexation of Crimea and Forum's protests are hassled and beaten by members of the Werewolves, a biker gang that helped in the annexation and so are now untouchable. Smith is convincing in describing the 'war' Putin is fighting agaist and and all opponents.

Yes, Arkady thought, a war was exactly what it was, but a war against perceived as well as real, internal opponents and external enemies. It was Stalin's Great Terror updated for modern times, with disinformation, legal machinations, indiscriminate violence. Bloodshed was a way of proving loyalty.
p98

The story descends into a persecution of Tartars who had already been made homeless by the removal of them from Crimea.

This was how pogroms started, by marking out an enemy and ushering in violence.
p218

Whilst we don't have magic or folklore in this book as we did in the Siberian Dilemma, we do have dolphins guarding the waters of Crimea, preventing boats from leaving and I was so unsure about this that I googled it. It is true. They are trained for defence duties.

You couldn't make it up! show less

This is a timely thriller about Russia just prior to the invasion of Ukraine. Arkady may work for the Russian government, but he is committed to finding out the truth about a woman's disappearance and at least three subsequent murders. His investigation leads him first to Kyiv and then to Crimea, alongside people protesting Putin's policies. Readers will get a glimpse into the justified paranoia of Putin's Russia, the difficulty of trusting alliances, and the dangers of speaking out, while at the same time daily life for most Russians carries on as normal. Arkady's diagnosis with Parkinsons Disease, which mirrors the author's own, adds interest and depth to his character. The ending seemed a bit abrupt to me, and I would have show more appreciated more of an epilogue. show less

I really enjoyed most of this book! It's timely, addressing issues regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It has Arkady becoming even more vulnerable, as he deals with his diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease. He also gets a new love interest and is set on a new case.

But the problem is the ending. After a good adventure and storyline, it just stops. Two pages that don't even really wrap anything up. It just kind of feels like the author gave up and wrote, "Then Renko went back to Russia." What happened with Bronson? Or the photographer? Or the Werewolves? Poof, all done. I almost thought that the book was going to snap shut on my fingers, it was in such a hurry to end!

The story follows an elderly Arkady Renko who is traveling all over the Crimean and Ukraine just before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He is searching for a disappeared girl, and trying to solve a number of political murders on people involved with the opposition.
A well written, relatively simple little story, the kind a master storyteller may write late in her career. Excellent writing and worldbuilding, but very little complexity in plot and storyline.
In that way it reminds me of Agents running in the field, John le Carres penultimate outing.

Oops - she road it with ease. 191

Another well-paced, economical story of Arcady's latest imbroglio. I have a hard time getting my head around how fast he forms his attachments to women, but there it is, every time. It isn't like a teenage crush or a first love, but more practical and, at least this time out, more empathetic and as a result of propinquity. The real villain is not hard to spot, nor to understand, but there is no "justice" not that there is in Russia. Ever.