In the latest installment of Martin Cruz Smith’s Arkady Renko series, the Moscow investigator seeks to solve the murder of a diplomat as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine wears on and the effects of Renko’s Parkinson’s Disease worsen. Helped by his lover, journalist Tatiana Petrovna, Renko traces the murder to a Russian paramilitary group aided by a government official who also used to be a romantic partner of Renko. Before long, those responsible for the killing look to similarly dispatch Arkady and Tatiana.
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.
