| Tatiana - an Arkady Renko novel
(2013)
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| Front Cover |
Book Details |
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| Genre |
Fiction |
| Subject |
Fiction - General; Fiction - Mystery & Detective - General; Fiction - Thrillers; Kaliningrad (Kaliningradskai?a? oblast', Russia) - Fiction; Mafia - Fiction; Police - Russia (Federation) - Moscow - Fiction; Political corruption - Fiction; Renko, Arkady (Fictitious character); Women journalists - Crimes against - Fiction |
| Publication Date |
11/12/2013 |
| Format |
Hardcover |
| Publisher |
Simon & Schuster |
| Language |
English |
| Extras |
Dust Jacket; Dust Jacket Cover |
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| Description |
| In Tatiana, Martin Cruz Smith, “the master of the international thriller” (The New York Times) creates the most compelling heroine of his career and the most realistic, damning portrait of modern Russia in contemporary literature. One of the iconic investigators of contemporary fiction, Arkady Renko—cynical, analytical, and quietly subversive—has survived the cultural journey from the Soviet Union to the New Russia, only to find the nation as obsessed with secrecy and brutality as was the old Communist dictatorship. In Tatiana, Martin Cruz Smith’s most ambitious novel since Gorky Park, the melancholy hero finds himself on the trail of a mystery as complex and dangerous as modern Russia herself. The fearless investigative reporter Tatiana Petrovna falls to her death from a sixth-floor window in Moscow the same week that a mob billionaire, Grisha Grigorenko, is shot and buried with the trappings due a lord. No one makes the connection, but Arkady is transfixed by the tapes he discovers of Tatiana’s voice, even as she describes horrific crimes hidden by official versions. The trail leads to Kaliningrad, a Cold War “secret city” and home of the Baltic Fleet, separated by hundreds of miles from the rest of Russia. Arkady delves into Tatiana’s past and a surreal world of wandering dunes and amber mines. His only link is a notebook written in the personal code of a translator whose body is found in the dunes. Arkady’s only hope of decoding the symbols lies in Zhenya, a teenage chess hustler. More than a mystery, Tatiana is a story rich in character, black humor, and romance, with an insight that is the hallmark of Martin Cruz Smith. |
| Personal Details |
| Store |
Barnes & Noble |
| Purchase Price |
$16.46 |
| Acquire Date |
11/25/2013 |
| Rating |
0 |
| Links |
Library of Congress
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| Product Details |
| LoC Classification |
PS3569.M5377 .T38 2013 |
| Dewey |
813/.54 |
| ISBN |
9781439140215 |
| No. of Pages |
293 |
| First Edition |
No |
| Rare |
No |
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| Notes/Review |
| Another Arkady Renko story. Returning to familiar characters seems a bit of a crutch to me, for both writer and reader. We don't need to spend any pages on setting up the main character. But Cruz Smith's stories aren't primarily character driven so I don't really fault him for returning to Renko. I think Cruz Smith is a pretty good story teller. I get immersed in the setting and action and am always compelled to keep turning the pages. |
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