Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith

Three bodies are found in Gorky Park, buried in the snow, shot dead, their identities all but erased. You'd expect a police inspector to relish the challenge of discovering who the victims were and what happened to them. But this is Moscow during the Cold War, and the Chief Inspector for the Militia, Arkady Renko, knows that this is no ordinary triple homicide. It reeks of the KGB. Unfortunately for Renko, his superior is insistent on his remaining on the case. The KGB is even "cooperative." So, Renko does what he does best: investigate, all the while hoping that the KGB will take over sooner rather than later. As he discovers the identities of the three victims and how they came to lie in the snow, he discovers the length that some people are willing to go to get what they want, including himself.

I decided to read Gorky Park after recently seeing the film that was based off of the novel. It's a good film, starring William Hurt. The book is much, much better. The author does a brilliant job of creating a realistic <i>fictional</i> Moscow, exposing a world of fickleness, hypocrisy, and corruption that Renko must navigate both professionally and personally. I must stress the fictional nature of the book. Gorky Park was first published in 1981 at the height of the Cold War. The USSR was the enemy of the U.S., the "Evil Empire," as pointed out by Lee Child in the book's introduction. Smith had a very limited time to do research in Russia. He was not going to be able to give an accurate portrayal of Soviet society, let alone its security bureaus. He just had to create something <i>believable</i>, and in that respect, he succeeded. The characters, if not likeable or relatable, are realistic. From the friend of the victim's refusal to accept their death, to Arkady's KGB nemesis, Major Pribluda who is just doing his job and who loves to garden (and is a great departure from the film!), to Arkady's sense of duty and justice, all of the main characters are well-developed and well-written. The plot is well-developed, with the reader finding out what happens as Arkady does. If you've only seen the film, it deviates quite significantly in the book. That said, there is a point in the book around the second and early third parts were the plot momentum slows down almost to a crawl before picking up again towards the end and not all of the subplots are resolved. As this is just the first book in a series, I'm willing to give the author a pass on this.

Overall, Gorky Park was a hard-t0-put-down, entertaining read for me. I look forward to reading more of the Arkady Renko series and discovering what other impossible situations he can find his way out of! Definitely scoring 5 stars with me.