excellent mystery set within Russian culture aboard factory fishing vessal...dectective approach includes action and thought...same author who wrote Gorky Park....
Read "Gorky Park" many years ago and recently picked up a copy of author's "Stalin's Ghost" also featuring Renko in post-communist Russia.
Was inspired to read all books featuring Renko so I went back to book 2, "Polar Star." Was not disappointed. Good murder mystery in dying days of Communist Russia. I plan on reading all 7 or so books in series now.
With so many choices of murder mysteries out there, it is great to read those that include knowledge about another society like Russia in current times.
Another intriquing tale from a masterful storyteller.
Arkady rules! Gorky Park adventure continues in Polar Star where Renko is banished to a hell ship of fish processing. Our persistent investigator falls on evidence and some how manages not to get killed. How could it get worse?
Once Moscow's top investigator he now works in obscurity on a Russian factory ship. But when an adventurous female crew member is picked up dead with the day's catch, Arkady is order to invesitage the accident that has the marks of murder.
He has made too many enemies. He lost his part membership. Once Moscow's top criminal investigator, he now toils in the obscurity on a Russian factory ship working with American trawlers in the middle of the Bering Sea.
But when an adventurous female crewmember is picked up dead with the day catch, Arkady Renko is ordered by his captain to investigate an "accident" that has all the marks of murder.
Up against the celebrated Soviet bureaucracy once more, Renko must again become the obsessed,dedicated cop he was in Gorky Park and solve a chilling mystery with international complications,in the vivid, heart-pounding thriller that never lets up.
Very enjoyable sequel to Gorky Park. The quietyly irresistable Investigator Renko is no longer that but now Seaman Renko cleaning fish on a Soviet factory fishing ship in the Bering Sea. The death of a female crew person brings him back into his old job with none of the perks. Except contact with the Americans in this joint fishing trip. Lots of Soviet era cynical conversation and insights into life at sea in the fishing industry. Nice aspects of Alaska too.
A wonderful read. It takes place in a locale not normally used with characters that are usually just fillers, and yet it captures your attention and takes you on the full ride. A great mystery and a wonderful novel.
From the inside dust jacket cover: "A Soviet factory ship makes its way through the fog of the Bering Sea off Alaska. Battered, streaked with rust, carrying a crew of three hundred-fifty of them women- the Polar Star is virtually a Soviet village in American waters. Its satellites are American trawlers that catch the fish; the Soviets clean, freeze and carry the harvest home. The last net of the night bears pollack, cod, crabs and, from the depths of the sea, the body of a woman missing from the Polar Star.
No one on board has any experience in the investigation of violent death except for one fugitive from the KGB working at the lowliest job, the 'slime line,' in the bowels of the ship. Once a senior investigator for homicide in Moscow, he hasn't set foot on land in almost a year. His name is Arkady Renko.
But the thaw of glasnost and perestroika has reached even the Bering Sea. On his captain's orders Arkady comes unwillingly, painfully, back to life as a detective. His unlikely assistant is Natasha, a Party amazon with 'eyes as black as Stalin's, but nice.' Her opposite, Susan, heads the American team aboard the Polar Star. Both are initially hostile to Arkady, yet drawn to him. He also gains the murderous attention of an ominous figure from his Moscow past, Karp Korobetz, the ship's model worker and a brutal criminal whom Arkady had sent to Siberia years before.
As his inquiry probes through layers of intrige at sea, then into the isolated port of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, and finally onto the Arctic ice, Arkady uncovers the true missions of the Polar Star and the American fleet surrounding it."
Sprung from a state psychiatric hospital, Arkady Renko takes refuge in Siberia, ultimately working on a Soviet factory ship in the Bering Sea. When one of his shipmates is murdered, he's pressed into service. "Those eagerly awaiting the return of Renko, the saturnine, chain-smoking police investigator from Moscow who appeared in the bestseller Gorky Park , will be glad to know their hero is back in fine form,"
This is the sequel to Gorky Park which was excellent. I guess the publisher turned down this one, so there is no ISBN. Wierd, huh? I liked it anyway. You will, too.
