I still recall the thrill I felt when I read Gorky Park in 1981, the first book by Martin Cruz Smith featuring the fearless detective Arkady Renko. I was so taken by his atmospheric description of Moscow that I traveled there a couple of years later to see it for myself. I preferred his version of Moscow to the real thing, and so I suppose I was not that surprised to learn that he had never visited the city before writing Gorky Park. That is an astonishing feat, to bring to life an actual place one has never been to.
Smith died last week at 82 after living with Parkinson’s disease for decades, an affliction that never hindered him from writing 10 more books featuring Renko. In fact, Renko himself develops the disease, and the dignity with which he copes with it surely mirrors Smith’s own grace. You can read the books in any order you like, but like Martin Beck and George Smiley, Renko is best understood by starting with his first appearance. His final one, in Hotel Ukraine, has just been published, and it is as masterful and thrilling as any book in the series. Arkady Renko lives on.
Jim Kelly is the Books Editor at AIR MAIl. He can be reached at jkelly@airmail.news
