Martin Cruz Smith’s investigator Arkady Renko, who – for lack of better words – is a pain in the ass in his department. Renko’s a man who believes that most officers cut corners in their investigations, whereas he is the type who will look into just-closed cases if he feels things were tied up too easily.

In STALIN’S GHOST, Renko is given an assignment so preposterous – considering his detective work in previous books – it’s pretty much a punishment: to find out what’s behind the sightings of Joseph Stalin at a train station. Yeah, that Stalin: the long-dead Russian leader.

While this is going one. Renko also is dealing with having found out that two of his fellow officers are operating a moonlighting operation of being paid killers who will gladly dispose of anyone for a price. For more stress, Renko’s home life is crumbling, with his live-in girlfriend wanting to leave for another man, and the stray chess prodigy he has adopted unofficially is happier living with the kids out in the street.

This novel is as dense as a blizzard, with Renko trying to figure out how to prove the officers guilty, while having to put up with his supervisor constantly belittling him for not working on the Stalin case. Even more kinks are thrown in, such as a woman who kills her husband, then turns up dead herself in the holding cell, with the husband having ties to the investigating officers. Renko investigates things that are best left alone, but of course, he doesn’t stop, so it comes with some tragic consequences.

Smith writes with a melting-snow-slow reveal, gradually showing us the bigger picture of what’s going on in Renko’s world. Even for a first-time reader of Smith – who’s perhaps best known for GORKY PARK – I was drawn immediately into the author’s vision of new Russia, where some people would rather forget their past, while others do nothing but remind. This is fine glimpse into one man’s mission to right the injustice in his own department. –Bruce Grossman

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