Independence Square: Arkady Renko in Ukraine

by Martin Cruz Smith Narrated by Jeremy Bobb

Overview

Detective Arkaday Renko-“one of the most compelling figures in modern fiction” (USA TODAY)-risks his life when he heads to Ukraine shortly before the Russian invasion to find an anti-Putin activist who has mysteriously disappeared.

Martin Cruz Smith has written nine previous novels featuring Arkady Renko, one of modern detective fiction's most popular characters. These novels, beginning with 1981's international sensation Gorky Park, have collectively traced Russia's evolution over the last half-century. Now, with Independence Square, Smith focuses on the fraught and frenzied days leading up to Vladimir Putin's war against Ukraine.

It's June 2021, and Arkady knows that Russia is preparing to invade and subsequently annex Ukraine as it did Crimea in 2014. He is, however, preoccupied with other grievances. His longtime lover, Tatiana Petrovna, has deserted him for her work as an investigative reporter. His corrupt boss has relegated him to a desk job. And he is having trouble with his dexterity and balance. A visit to his doctor reveals that these are symptoms for Parkinson's Disease.

This is an ingenious autobiographical conceit, as Martin Cruz Smith has Parkinson's, and is able through Arkady to movingly describe his own experience with the disease. Parkinson's hasn't stopped Smith from his work, and neither does it stop Arkady. Rather than dwell on his diagnosis, he throws himself into another case.

An acquaintance has asked him to find his daughter, Karina, an anti-Putin activist who has disappeared. In the course of the investigation, Arkady falls for Karina's roommate, Elena, a Tatar from Ukraine. The search leads them to Kyiv, where rumblings of an armed conflict grow louder. Later, in Crimea, Tatiana reemerges to complicate Arkady's new romance. And as he gets closer to locating Karina, Arkady discovers something that threatens his life as well as the lives of both Elena and Tatiana.

Few fiction writers have better captured contemporary Russia with more insight or authenticity than Martin Cruz Smith. He does the same here for Ukraine and the events that preceded Russia's invasion. Independence Square is a timely and a uniquely personal mystery novel-meets-political thriller by a master of the form.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

★ 02/27/2023

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)

From the Publisher

Poignant....a moving portrayal of struggle against political and personal tides.” —New York Times Book Review

"A thrilling and poignant novel." —Wall Street Journal

"[Detective Arkady] Renko, who made his debut in 1981's Gorky Park, remains the archetype of an honest cop working for a corrupt regime." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Solid sleuthing by Arkady Renko and a good read for his fans." —Kirkus Reviews

APRIL 2023 - AudioFile

Jeremy Bobb provides an exceptional narration of Smith's latest Arkady Renko procedural. Detective Renko, who originally appeared in GORKY PARK, is tasked with finding a missing woman who may have been persecuted for her anti-government political stance. Meanwhile, Renko is facing the loss of Tatiana, his lover, who has left him. Renko is also facing early stages of Parkinson's disease, a development that forces him to question his purpose in life. The action occurs against the backdrop of Putin's aggressive moves toward Ukraine, giving a tone of real-time urgency to the proceedings. Bobb's performance embraces the audiobook's noir tone, providing a weathered, world-weary pacing to the proceedings while deftly handling the various Russian accents. He gives the characters both the requisite hardened outlook and heart. S.P.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2023-04-12
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.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940176889796
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	05/09/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 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.”

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