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Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
A good high seas murder mystery in Soviet times.... Chief Investigator Arkady Renko has been banished from duties and expelled from the Party. He eventually finds himself as a seahand on a Soviet fishing ship (Polar Star) which trawls the waters between Alaska and Siberia working in co-operation with American ships. When a murder occurs on board the Star, Renko gets a token appointment to investigate the crime. No-one is seriously interested in finding out what really happened and, in fact, a suicide note is produced in short order to have the investigations... more info
Best book I have read this year Surpasses Gorky Park. I prefer the neatness of keeping the plot based nearly entirely on the ship. The background details of life on the factory ship itself are fantastic, and the larger backdrop of life under the soviet regieme during Glastnost. Renko is a fascinating and engrossing character. A real page-turner of a book, but with pieces of truly beautiful writing. Cruz-Smith is the best author in this genre.
Grimly descriptive I read Gorky simply because I ran out of reading material and this was all that was on the shelf at the time but I am so glad I did. It led me to want to read more of this man's brilliance so I bought Polar Star. I cannot deny the storyline was difficult to keep up with at times but that is because it is written to successfully keep us on our toes - it almost forces us to check our memory as we go along otherwise we could be mistaken in thinking bits don't quite make sense. A tactic used often by writers... more info
Better than Gorky Park I prefer this to Gorky Park because it evokes a much stronger image of the life of Soviet workers in the 80s. It's a murder-mystery, with a bit of politics and espionage thrown into the mix. It is a well-paced thriller, that I honestly couldn't put down without difficulty. I look forward to reading the other Renko books.
