The aficionados of the Renko novels will still have a gem in Smith’s latest, which upholds Smith’s reputation as a great craftsman of modern detective fiction with his sharply drawn, complex characters and a compelling plot ... A fresh international detective tale with a backstory pulled straight from recent headlines ... After a somewhat slow start, the action in the novel speeds up as the story advances, and the end approaches with multiple twists and surprises.
A galloping wonder ... Smith...[is a] sensitive and supple writer—but his achievement, for me, goes beyond the standards of great detective fiction. The Arkady Renko books, which deepen and darken with feeling as they go, are a testament to courage and a reminder of mortality ... Great.
Hotel Ukraine is everything we have come to expect from this outstanding series and Martin Cruz Smith. It is a bittersweet goodbye to these novels, as well as Smith’s brilliant imagination and skill with manipulating the written word.
Expectations are constantly subverted in brilliant ways ... This author infuses deliciously dark wit into grim material and separates Renko from so many broken down, morose detectives in literature ... We are treated to a thrilling chase sequence ... Martin Cruz Smith mines humor from the unlikeliest sources and uses it effectively to counterbalance the pain of occupation and oppression ... A magnificent work of mystery writing for us all.
[Smith] does a masterful job of giving the reader a vivid, even tactile sense of what it is like to navigate daily life with [Parkinson's]. Arkady Renko is one of modern crime fiction’s greatest creations ... As a whole, the Renko series is among the genre’s most consistent and compelling.
Smith draws immense pathos from Renko’s struggles with Parkinson’s, and he smoothly adapts the investigator’s signature dedication to truth to Russia’s current political climate. This long-running series remains as vital as ever.
