Independence Square Arkady Renko in Ukraine

Bestseller Smith's stellar 10th mystery featuring Arkady Renko (after 2019's The Siberian Dilemma) finds the maverick Russian investigator working for Moscow's Office of Prosecution in June 2021. Relegated by his boss to desk duty, he serves as the office's departmental liaison officer and attends pointless meetings where he's "neither wanted nor needed." He gets a chance to exercise his investigative skills when Fyodor Abakov, a bodybuilder who runs protection rackets in the city, asks him to trace his missing daughter, Karina, a violinist in a string quartet. That Karina is a member of an anti-Putin organization, Forum for Democracy, has led Abakov to fear that the government is behind her disappearance. Renko agrees to help, and his inquiry eventually takes him to Ukraine and Crimea in search of leads. His efforts are complicated by several brazen political murders, a new romantic opportunity, and a diagnosis that he has Parkinson's, which has already affected his balance and energy level. Smith's reveal about what happened to Karina is surprising, logical, and disturbing. Renko, who made his debut in 1981's Gorky Park, remains the archetype of an honest cop working for a corrupt regime. Agent: Andrew Nurnberg, Andrew Nurnberg Assoc. (May)

Moscow police detective Arkady Renko takes on dangerous challenges on the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. An acquaintance asks Renko to find his adult daughter Karina Abakova, who has "disappeared down a rabbit hole," and Renko says he will search for her for no pay. Karina's interests are music and politics, specifically the anti-government Forum for Democracy. The latter passion seems unwise, as "politics in Russia was for the corrupt, the brave, and the foolish." Then an acquaintance of Renko's is killed before they can meet, and the detective is assigned to find the man's killer. Maybe a connection exists between Karina's disappearance and the murder, which is the first of several. Meanwhile, long-time Renko readers will recall his lover Tatiana Petrovna, who had left him, saying he lacked ambition. And now he's begun to show the classic signs of Parkinson's disease. With Tatiana out of his life and him having an incurable disease, he wonders if life is worth living. Still, he carries on with what becomes two murder cases and a missing person case. One trail leads to Independence Square in Kyiv as Russia appears on the brink of launching an invasion. He crosses paths again with Tatiana, now a New York Times correspondent covering developments in Ukraine. Independence Square plays less of a role in the story than the title might suggest, with plenty of space going to Moscow and Crimea--Renko is a Moscow cop, after all. There are fascinating insights into the Russian character: "No one was better than a Russian at having a superiority complex and an inferiority complex at the same time," and "Beer didn't really count as alcohol in a country where men drank vodka and real men drank brake fluid." (Oh, that can't be true!) And yet there is sympathy, as a character laments the demise of the Soviet Union, saying "We lost everything we had for bubble gum and jeans." Solid sleuthing by Arkady Renko and a good read for his fans. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Chapter 1 1 "You know what the two most depressing words in the Russian language are?" Arkady asked. "How long have I got?" Victor's voice sounded thick with gravel, which was always a sign that the previous night he hadn't so much fallen off the wagon as plunged from it. "?'Desk job,'?" Arkady said. "In a country which clasps tragedy to its breast, nothing is more tragic than a man with a 'desk job.'?" "As always, Investigator, you zero in on the truth." "Investigator." Arkady sighed. "The only inquiry I've made in the past three months has been into the quality of the coffee here in Petrovka." Petrovka 38 was the police headquarters where Arkady worked as investigator for the Office of Prosecution, and Victor was his good friend and assistant detective. "What did you decide?" "That when the devil came to seduce Margarita in Patriarch Ponds, he stopped off on the way to install vending machines. Come on, Victor, what do you call an investigator who doesn't investigate?" "A crime," said Victor. It was, of course, Prosecutor Zurin who had confined Arkady to office duties. He had, over the years, sent Arkady to various extremities of the country on cases: to Kaliningrad, hard up against the Polish border in the west, and to Lake Baikal, halfway to the Far East, across endless rolls of Siberian tundra. Perhaps, Arkady thought, he could complete the compass by going to the far north or the far south. The Northern Fleet in Murmansk was always a hotbed of scandal, and any time spent there would play havoc with Arkady's circadian rhythms to an extent which would please even Zurin. The sun didn't rise for six weeks in the winter and didn't set for six weeks in the summer. Men went mad with monotonous regularity up there, and sometimes Arkady felt he had less far to go than most. As for the south--well, Crimea was Russian again now, and it was very nice at this time of year. Arkady had been there once with his first wife, Zoya, back in the days when every woman on the beach wore the same leopard-print swimsuit because that was the only one on sale that year. As the saying went, the past was another country. Papers were stacked in ziggurats on Arkady's desk. He picked up a sheet off the tallest one and waved it vaguely in Victor's direction. "Departmental liaison officer. Do you know what that means?" "That you attend endless meetings where you're neither wanted nor needed." "Right," said Arkady. The ziggurat slid and toppled as Arkady put the paper back. A solitary sheet floated gently downwards like a snowflake. Victor stretched out a hand and caught it lightly between thumb and forefinger. "What's this?" he asked. "What do you mean?" "The handwriting is so tiny, it's illegible. I can't read a word of it. Can you read it?" "Of course. It's my handwriting." "Go on, then." He handed the paper to Arkady. "Read it to me." Arkady hesitated. "I can't read a word of it either," Arkady said. "You should transcribe it onto the computer while it's still fresh in your mind. "It's called age, Victor. Everything starts going with age." Excerpted from Independence Square: Arkady Renko in Ukraine by Martin Cruz Smith All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.