Martin Cruz Smith

Arkady Renko returns in a new mystery about crime and corruption in the cold, dark, impenetrable landscape of modern day Moscow. Though he has been technically suspened from the prosecutor's office again, he needs to solve a last case: the death of a young woman who's body is found on the perimeter of Moscow's rail hub. It looks like a simple drug overdose to everyone, except Renko, who turns up some inexplicable clues, like an invitation to Russia's...

In the wake of a businessman's suicide, Moscow detective Arkady Renko investigates secrets and international plots that may have driven him to his death, in a case that leads Renko to discover crimes in the area surrounding Chernobyl.

Investigator Arkady Renko, the pariah of the Moscow prosecutor's office, has been assigned the thankless job of investigating a new phenomenon: late-night subway riders report seeing the ghost of Joseph Stalin on the platform of the Chistye Prudy Metro station. The illusion seems part political hocus-pocus and also part wishful thinking, for among many Russians Stalin is again popular; the bloody dictator can boast a two-to-one approval rating. Decidedly...