Red Square: A Novel

Martin Cruz Smith is a former journalist and magazine editor. "Red Square" is his third novel - after " Gorky Park " and "Polar Star" - to feature Arkady Renko and was first published in 1992.

Renko, the hero, works as an Investigator with Moscow's militia - more or less the standard police force - and has something of a chequered career. Never a truly 'practising' member of the Party, Renko hasn't always been thought highly of by those in authority. He has always wanted to catch the people responsible for the crimes he's investigating, regardless of the 'political' consequences - as a result of this, he was once dismissed from the Party for a lack of 'political reliability' and sentenced to a life in Siberia. He also appears to be something of a disappointment to his father, a very famous ex-General. (Arkady's opinion of his father - who is very ill as the book opens - isn't too high, either). However, after the events outlined in "Polar Star", he was reinstated to his former position - but is now working in a new Moscow that he barely recognises. "Red Square" is largely set in Moscow, Munich and Berlin in 1991 and is set in turbulent times : Germany has been re-unified and the breakup of the USSR is closing in.

The book opens in August 1991, with Renko and his partner - an Estonian called Jaak Kuusnets - on their way to a meeting with Rudy Rosen. Although Rosen operates as a banker for the various factions of the Russian Mafia, he has agreed to Renko planting a transmitter in his car for the duration of a Mafia-sponsored illegal market. (This is largely due to the fact that the militia have enough to put Rosen away for a very long time). Despite turning informer, Rosen appears to feel relatively safe. The Chechen faction, headed up by Makhmud, constitutes his only real enemy, but - since all the factions require his services - he doesn't think he's under any real threat. His sense of security is reinforced by Mikhail Kim, his fearsome-looking Korean bodyguard, and his business partnership with Borya Gubenko - the head of the Long Pond Mafia. Unfortunately, shortly after a quiet conversation with Arkady at the market, Rudy is killed when his car goes up in flames - changing Renko's case from surveillance to a murder inquiry. One of the witnesses points the finger at Kim - and it seems clear the Korean was responsible for at least one of the two explosions.

Although Arkady works most closely with Jaak, there are a couple of other members on the team he has assembled. Polina deals with the forensic work and is nearly as dedicated to her job as Arkady Renko is to his. Minin, on the other hand, is practically the anti-Renko : he remains devoted to the Party and is, in fact, the only Party member on the team. Renko's boss is a man called Rodionov - the City Prosecutor and an elected member of the People's Congress. When Renko meets with Rodionov to inform him of the investigation's progress, he's also introduced to General Penyagin - the recently appointed head of CID. Unlike his predecessor, Penyagin is a bureaucrat - not a detective risen from the ranks. Renko is stunned to discover that the third person attending the meeting, Max Albov, is a journalist. As the investigation unfolds, developments take Renko far and wide - even to the recently reunited Germany. However, Albov proves to be someone Renko just can't avoid.

This is a hugely enjoyable book - in fact, the Renko series is just getting better and better as it goes along. The book is set in the USSR's dying days, a difficult time for all those used to playing the political game. As such, it's probably even more dangerous that it had been - especially for someone like Renko who only cared about catching the villain, rather than doing what was politically 'correct'. Highly recommended.

Although Havana Bay has been out a few years now, its predecessor Red Square and the two previous Arkady Renko mysteries should never be forgotten. Martin Cruz Smith is a master of place and mood. He is absolutely convincing that he's personally been in the places he describes and has absorbed the atmospherics of the setting. With a background of deprivation and impending chaos, the predominant mood of this book is suspense. Arkady himself is never safe, even when working the murders at hand with his own staff. Every sentence contributes to the feeling that only one's mental alertness and puny physical skills stand between survival and disaster.
It would be a serious understatement to refer to a "crime" in this book. As the Soviet Union dissolves and, with it, law and order, the spoils of the former Communist state are being gobbled up by the most nimble of the mafias. Among these, the most vicious are the Chechens, but every neighborhood of Moscow has spawned its own. Where is there not crime?
As the story opens, Arkady has been reinstated as investigator in good standing in the Moscow police. Once he has launched a murder investigation in the normal course of his duties, however, he is forced to continue, not so much in the name of justice, of which there is very little hope, but to keep a step ahead of palpable threats to his own career and safety. With action taking place in Russia and Germany, Red Square will appeal to readers with a taste for spy fiction. Although this book is fiction, it describes Russia in the turmoil of USSR collapse as well as any piece of non-fiction could. Creating a new society in Russia will be one the great events of the early 21st century. Smith takes you there, to be present at the conception.

Martin Cruz Smith does a nice job of recreating a time and place: Russia on the cusp of transitioning from a broken and corrupt Soviet system to an olegarch ruled kleptocracy. I also liked the characters. Our hero is a much suffering, but inherently noble Moscow homicide detective, who tangles with a variety of well crafted villains. The plot starts with the violent death of a cooperating “wired” off the books currency trader. This leads our detective to uncover criminal activities including more murders by people who want squelch the investigation. I found some plot elements of the unfolding conspiracy a little unconvincing, but all in all this is a very Good read.

Somehow I missed reading this as I was working my way through this series and it was fun to find it and now I'll have to take another look at Havana Bay, to see what I might have missed before. Arkady Renko is a character I've come to enjoy and identify with. May Mr. Smith keep writing about him!

Earlier this year, I took on the Arkady Renko novels by Martin Cruz Smith for a reread, and to fit in the missing segments of the series that I had missed the first time around. They're an intense, introspective and often brutal look at life in a Soviet Union that is crumbling under corruption and misdeeds, and a man who has somehow managed to hang onto a sense of who he is in the midst of all of the chaos.

In Red Square, Renko has been recalled from exile in Siberia and has returned to being an investigator in Moscow. Not that life is cozy again. For one, Irina isn't there, and Arkady is mourning her loss by listening to her broadcasts on an American sponsored Radio Liberty from a reunited Germany. It's a practice that is certain to drive a man mad, but fortunately Renko has a job that keeps him busy most of the time.

This time, he's involved with Rudy Rosen, a small time black-marketer that Renko has pressured into turning state's witness to trail down some smuggled goods. Sadly the case falls apart nearly as quickly as we get to see it start -- Rudy is turned into a blackened corpse when his Audi blows up in the middle of the black market. Now Renko has an even bigger problem on his hands -- solving Rosen's murder, and finding out that he's still as much in love with Irina as ever.

Then there's the little problem of his father, who has finally died and given Arkady a letter -- a letter that he just as soon would destroy rather than read. Eventually, the trail of all these tangled threads will lead Renko to Munich, Germany, where Radio Liberty and Irina are, and the story grows from there, adding in an American obsessed with WWII and Renko's father, Russian prostitutes tooling about in SUV's, a very efficient German policeman by the name of Schiller, and as always, Irina.

But this time, not only does Irina seem to be involved with someone else, but also she doesn't want anything to do with Renko, and tells him so with brutal effect...

This wasn't my favourite of the Renko novels so far. Unlike the previous two in the series, I didn't get much sense of the time and place. While I could certainly empathize with Renko's difficulties with his father and Irina, and his wanderings through Munich, I didn't feel too involved with the story. Renko too seems like a moving ghost in this one too, detached from everything around him, and while we do get treated to his introspections, it's not nearly as interesting as before.

On the other hand, discovering the various meanings of the term Red Square was interesting. There are excursions into Russian Avant-Garde art, a Russian sex club, and of course, the huge open expanse in front of Moscow's Kremlin. Another prominent feature in the story are cars -- from the various ones that seem to be ready to run Renko down throughout the story, to Tommy's Trabant (surely one of the most inane ideas that ever hit the road), to Schiller's obsession with speed and control on the German autobahn.

But sadly, Red Square doesn't really rise to the occasion. What with all of the zooming about on roads, maudlin mooning after Irina, I never did really understand all of the twists and turns of the smuggling ring and the Chechens. Somewhere along the line, that took a back seat to the Irina subplot, and while I was certainly interested in seeing how that plotline was going to play out, I wasn't too pleased in seeing it take central stage. Too, the body count is high in this one, and at times, it does get messy; the storyline keeps shifting from dead slow to very intense at high speed, and while the writing itself is excellent, it was the story that let me down in the end.

As with most series, while it isn't completely necessary to have read the previous two books, a lot of the underlaying themes will be lost to the novice reader. Smith throws in a little backstory to help, but I don't think that it would be enough to really help the reader understand Arkady's helpless and consuming passion for Irina.

Oh well. Even the best of authors turn out a clunker now and then. While it was good to see Arkady Renko back in Moscow where he belonged, this one lacked the focus of his first two Renko novels. While I will certainly be reading the rest of the series, I doubt that this one will be one that I will be dipping into again.

As with the previous trade paperback releases of this series, there is an afterword. This is an interview between the author and Don Swaim, which goes into a little about writing Red Square.

Three and a half stars rounded up to four stars. Recommended only if you are a fan of the character or Smith's writing.

The Third in the Inspector Arkady Renko series in Martin Cruz Smith's series of Russian intrigue. The series includes Gorky Park, Polar Star, Red Square and Havana Bay, SO FAR. We can only hope there will be more. (Smith is on schedule of a book every FIVE years. But the resulting work is worth it!)
Most writers today find a successful formula and stick to it... over and over. The only thing the same from Martin Cruz Smith's works are their high level of excitement, interesting characters and plot development. Arkady Renko is one of the most interesting characters in all of mystery fiction.
What Smith does best is gives the reader an insiders' view of a society totally different than what the audience is used to.
Whether it be Los Alamos during the development of Man's deadliest weapon in Stallion Gate, Cuba in Havana Bay, Japan on the brink of World War II in December 4th: A Novel, or Moscow in Gorky Park, with his characters on the verge of an exciting adventure for the reader to be a part of.Smith then introduces characters to his readers as if we had been their friends (or enemies) for years.
I judge other mysteries and mystery writers byMartin Cruz Smith's works. Some mysteries I consume like potato chips or pretzels. Very, VERY few do I savor each page as I do Martin Cruz Smith's excellent thrillers!
John Row

If you're reading this review it's probably because you
haven't read Martin Cruz Smith's Red Square yet. And that's
too bad, because you're missing a vivid glimpse into both the
mafia-riddled new Russia and the loyalties of the human heart.
Arkady Renko, the homicide detective hero of Smith's earlier
books Gorky Park and Polar Star, returns to Moscow and finds
himself battling an international crime ring in a story that
crosses the German border and brings him face-to-face with
his longed-for lost love. The gripping plot and Smith's
masterful ability to capture the nuances of these complex
geographical and psychological landscapes make this a book
you will remember every time you pick up a copy of your
favorite news magazine.

This is an easy read, like all Arcady Renko books, but a disappointing one in the end, like many of them. The author is better at travelogue, history, politics etc. than at plot. character, and action. I'd hoped to get a feeling for the transition from the Soviet Union to the Russian Republic from this, but the concentration on avant-garde art was a confusing detour. Renko and some minor characters like Polina and Stas are interesting but there are too many dull villains and the heroine, Irina, is really a bore underneath all the romantic trappings the author heaps on her. Arcady should have taken up with little pathologist Polina instead instead of an overwrought ice maiden. In the end, a mistake to build a political novel around avant garde Russian art.

martin cruz smith has delivered a delicious tale of historical intrigue. having been to moscow and berlin multiple times, i appreciate the realism in his descriptions. the physical connection resonates fully and the plots accentuate smartly. the meandering convenience of some of the organized crime figures is somewhat shallow, and yet they are necessary to illustrate the freemarket chaos in post-soviet russia. i thought that the upshot of the coup attempt was ignored, being that the story ended with tanks on the steps of the white house. the romance played well with irina but i was disappointed that the teasing with the female detective wasn't pursued. i would've enjoyed a romp in the sack between renko and the young bomb expert. in conclusion, my experience was one of light pleasure and therefore this pile of words is highly recommended.

Martin Cruz Smith's latest in the trilogy of Arkady Renko, one of the more fascinating characters I have come across. It is an understatement to call this novel merely a thriller, because it opens the reader to certain aspects of Russian life both at home and abroad. I enjoyed this book as much as "Gorky Park", and Smith's research and experiences in Russia show in his writing. The novel is rather bleak at times, but I don't feel that should be a dertiment to any work of art. While the myriad of minor characters can be confusing at times, it shows many different opinions and views rather than just limiting its viewpoint to that of Renko. One of my favorite passages in the book was the following, as Smith describes a prostitute from the region of Uzbekistan:
"She set her face and started walking again, wobbling on her heels. Uzbeks had once been the Golden Horde of Tamerlaine that had swept from Mongolia to Moscow. This was the end, stumbling on the autobahn."

I read this right after reading An Agent In Place by Robert Littell, who's supposedly equally versed in all things Russian. I'm sorry but Smith blows Littell away in terms of writing talent, evocative descriptions, and intricate plotting. Smith successfully captures the chaos of the days after the '91 coup in Moscow, as well as how Party stalwarts morphed overnight into rapacious capitalists.

After a nice little fishing trip, Renko is allowed back in Moscow to work. The next Arkady Renko novel is a little better than the previous effort. It gets across the decay and depressing atmosphere of the communist country that he is in, and the rise to power of the Russian mafia.

A man that is a banker for many of the mafia groups is murdered, and Arkady is on the trail.

This final sequel to Gorky Park is dark and gripping. The fallen detective, Arkadi Reko, finally returns to Moscow in triumph. At last he regains his honor. But for what? For the new Russia? Red Square is a thriller to be ranked with the best. Each of these novels leaves you wanting more. Smith is a writer of the highest magnitude.

I read that finale over and over. The apparatchiki put down their briefcases and build barricades. I was there at EDSA in Manila when the kids and the nuns stopped the tanks with flowers and rosaries. Yet only when I read the MCS description do I get the full impact of People Power as a transformation and triumph of the human spirit.

This book is not only a terrific action/mystery novel that is beautifully written, it provides significant insights into the transition of Russia from a communist to a capitalist state.
And it makes a very significant statement about how the Russians feel about the new Russia. After hundreds of pages of predominantly negative portrayals of the problems of new Russia, you get a very poignant portrayal of how much the people of Russia want to defend that society.

Please don't read this book before you read Gorky Park and Polar Star. And please read Havana Bay after this book.
There is no relation between the books. But you have to follow the love story of Arkady and Irina. Each book introduces a stage in this relation.
A love between two people can be sensitive this much.
After reading first 3 books, when you turn the last page of Havana Bay, you will thank me. Not for the books, but for the love story I reminded you.

I found this book very thrilling and entertaining. The russian Mafia is conquering Germany immediately after the Berlin wall has fallen. Cruz-Smith draws a detailed portrait of the changes. But his picture of Germany is more a cliché than reality. Mercedes Benz, Porsche and BMW are not the only cars in Germany. "Lederhosen" are not the common trousers in the streets of Munich. Nevertheless this novel is great.

I read this book twice. Still was confused, but as in his other novels, the author grabs you and puts you inside the protagonist's (Arkady Renko) head.
I think I will read this a third time. Even if I still don't understand it, I will greatly enjoy the ride.

Several times I wasn't sure what Arkady was doing or why. There's a hovering feel of depression over the whole book, associated with the decay of the Soviet Union. "Polar Star" was more fun. I read this twice anyways -- maybe it's that the detective story isn't the main plot.

Arkady Renko is my favorite current detective, just a notch below Philip Marlowe. I enjoy his snide remarks about the apparatchiks, and the government in general. Also I like his comic set ups of Federov the assistant Soviet attache in Munich. All in all wonderful writing. I am dieting myself reading other books before I read the next Arkady Renko novel, which in my case would be Gorky Park.