Rating: 
Summary: CLASS ACT
Review: "Polar Star" brings about the very best in contemporary thriller writing. The setting on board the Soviet factory ship is as bleak and unforgiving as you can imagine. Smith's main character Renko quite brilliant. The only other author I know in the class of this writer is British best selling author John Templeton Smith - check out his "White Lie". Seems the Smiths have cornered the market on quality.
Rating:
Summary: I loved this book
Review: A compelling and exciting read from beginning to end. I couldn't put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing crime on a russian fish ship off Alaska
Review: Arkady Renko (Gorky Park) is lost in the bowels of a fish factory, fleeing his past work against the Russian government. A girl crew member is brought up dead in a net and Renko as the only investigator aboard is asked to look into it. The girl even dead is a surprisingly alive heroine. The close quarters of the factory ship, the cooperative work with American fishermen, even a visit to the aleutians add up to an unnusual crime novel. Despite numerous dangers Renko comes up with the answer and even as the book ends is rehabilitated.
Unusual setting, exotic cast of characters, make a fascinating rea
Rating: 
Summary: A good ride
Review: Arkady Renko's detecting style is to get beat up, then deny he is on the case, then get beat up again. Just when you think he might solve something, he gets beat up again.
Rating:
Summary: Fish stories
Review: Arkady Renko, late of the office of the Moscow Prosecutor, is called upon by the captain of the Polar Star, a factory ship, to investigate the death of one of the galley workers. It seems that the girl, a Georgian, Zina had fallen from the ship and her body had been recovered in one of the nets. Renko was employed in the factory operation, or the slime line as was popularly said. In Sakhalin Zina had paraded on the decks in her bathing suit. The Polar Star was like a Soviet Village on American waters. The first mate on a Soviet ship was the political officer. The first mate told Arkady Renko that a finding of suicide would be the best thing. Renko attended the autopsy of the deceased. The ship went out for six months at a time. It is Soviet territory on a Soviet ship notwithstanding American waters. Everyone on the ship should be nervous. Zina was very democratic. It would seem that there was no special man. Zina Patiashvili was last seen at a dance in the cafeteria. There was a contention it was a freak accident. She may have fallen on the stairs and rolled into the sea. It was the genius of Soviet democracy that all meetings should meet comradely unanimity. Renko violated this state of affairs. Renko contended she was killed on the ship and stored there. She was stabbed to prevent her from going to the surface. Renko had been dismissed from the Moscow prosecutor's office. Arkady is deemed to have had a shady past, but someone puts in a good word for him. He may be politically reckless but there is no question of his professional abilities. The back story is he was held and questioned and abused in a psychiatric hospital. He was released clandestinely. He was told that he needed to go somewhere where no one would follow him. He was employed above the Arctic Circle as a watchman in Norilsk. On his second month on the job he saw two security men and moved east in Siberia. Fortunately there was a labor shortage. At the end of the second year he arrived at Vladivostok. He signed onto the Polar Star. Arkady was told there were Americans on the boat. It was a joint venture. Arkady had a second class visa. He could not leave the ship at foreign ports. Zina had tapes and a microphone in her tape player. After seventy years of socialism thieves' songs had become the counter-anthem of the Soviet Union. Zina dwelt in the world of hidden photographs and secret tapes. In the hold Renko looked for the lair of a lieutenant of naval intelligence he had heard on a tape. He was hit and thrown into a cold storage unit by three people. Arkady was saved by a roommate of Zina's he had enlisted to assist him in the investigation. Arkady had an important father and went to special schools. After four months of fishing Arkady's fellow workers were now lined up for port call. He notes that in irony the Soviet Union leads the world. Arkady left the ship via an officer bearing a German name, Hess, on a sort of special pass. Without money Arkady felt like a voyeur. None had been issued to him for his impromptu excursion. Maybe Arkady had been seduced by Dostoevsky's intelligent interrogator in CRIME AND PUNISHMENT to become an interrogator himself. Susan, the American, saw him ashore. Then he saw Marchuk, the captain, Hess, and George Morgan, another one of the Americans. Morgan stopped her from talking to Arkady. Circumstances in this book in keeping with circumstances in general in the Soviet Union are always mysterious. One awaits with interest the unraveling of the politics through information gleaned from the now opened archives. Americans get drunk and get loud, Russians get serious. Happiness is the maximum agreement of reality and desire. Susan and Zina were friends. According to Susan Zina was a Russian Norma Jean. Arkady followed Mikhail, an Aleut, to a bunker. The trawlmaster and the first mate followed him. Mikhail was dead. Karp, the trawlmaster, was a criminal Arkady knew. Karp killed the first mate and saved Arkady. I will not detail the further adventures of Arkady as he soulght to evade the murderous wrath of Karp. Suffice to say that he escaped danger. There was a sheet of ice. Americans were getting rich and the Soviets were doubling their daily plan. Slava Bukovsky had been nominated to take the place of the deceased political officer. An interested detail provided by the author is that a Soviet ship is oveheated. With two people in body bags the captain worried that his next assignment would be a garbage scow. Arkady discovered the Naval intelligence connection to the girl Zina, someone named Nikolai. He finally stumbled across a deep issue, a reason for his employment as an The plot continues--eventful, exciting, tangled. This is in the style of John Le Carre. It is excellent.
Rating:
Summary: Fish stories
Review: Arkady Renko, late of the office of the Moscow Prosecutor, is called upon by the captain of the Polar Star, a factory ship, to investigate the death of one of the galley workers. It seems that the girl, a Georgian, Zina had fallen from the ship and her body had been recovered in one of the nets. Renko was employed in the factory operation, or the slime line as was popularly said. In Sakhalin Zina had paraded on the decks in her bathing suit. The Polar Star was like a Soviet Village on American waters. The first mate on a Soviet ship was the political officer. The first mate told Arkady Renko that a finding of suicide would be the best thing. Renko attended the autopsy of the deceased. The ship went out for six months at a time. It is Soviet territory on a Soviet ship notwithstanding American waters. Everyone on the ship should be nervous. Zina was very democratic. It would seem that there was no special man. Zina Patiashvili was last seen at a dance in the cafeteria. There was a contention it was a freak accident. She may have fallen on the stairs and rolled into the sea. It was the genius of Soviet democracy that all meetings should meet comradely unanimity. Renko violated this state of affairs. Renko contended she was killed on the ship and stored there. She was stabbed to prevent her from going to the surface. Renko had been dismissed from the Moscow prosecutor's office. Arkady is deemed to have had a shady past, but someone puts in a good word for him. He may be politically reckless but there is no question of his professional abilities. The back story is he was held and questioned and abused in a psychiatric hospital. He was released clandestinely. He was told that he needed to go somewhere where no one would follow him. He was employed above the Arctic Circle as a watchman in Norilsk. On his second month on the job he saw two security men and moved east in Siberia. Fortunately there was a labor shortage. At the end of the second year he arrived at Vladivostok. He signed onto the Polar Star. Arkady was told there were Americans on the boat. It was a joint venture. Arkady had a second class visa. He could not leave the ship at foreign ports. Zina had tapes and a microphone in her tape player. After seventy years of socialism thieves' songs had become the counter-anthem of the Soviet Union. Zina dwelt in the world of hidden photographs and secret tapes. In the hold Renko looked for the lair of a lieutenant of naval intelligence he had heard on a tape. He was hit and thrown into a cold storage unit by three people. Arkady was saved by a roommate of Zina's he had enlisted to assist him in the investigation. Arkady had an important father and went to special schools. After four months of fishing Arkady's fellow workers were now lined up for port call. He notes that in irony the Soviet Union leads the world. Arkady left the ship via an officer bearing a German name, Hess, on a sort of special pass. Without money Arkady felt like a voyeur. None had been issued to him for his impromptu excursion. Maybe Arkady had been seduced by Dostoevsky's intelligent interrogator in CRIME AND PUNISHMENT to become an interrogator himself. Susan, the American, saw him ashore. Then he saw Marchuk, the captain, Hess, and George Morgan, another one of the Americans. Morgan stopped her from talking to Arkady. Circumstances in this book in keeping with circumstances in general in the Soviet Union are always mysterious. One awaits with interest the unraveling of the politics through information gleaned from the now opened archives. Americans get drunk and get loud, Russians get serious. Happiness is the maximum agreement of reality and desire. Susan and Zina were friends. According to Susan Zina was a Russian Norma Jean. Arkady followed Mikhail, an Aleut, to a bunker. The trawlmaster and the first mate followed him. Mikhail was dead. Karp, the trawlmaster, was a criminal Arkady knew. Karp killed the first mate and saved Arkady. I will not detail the further adventures of Arkady as he soulght to evade the murderous wrath of Karp. Suffice to say that he escaped danger. There was a sheet of ice. Americans were getting rich and the Soviets were doubling their daily plan. Slava Bukovsky had been nominated to take the place of the deceased political officer. An interested detail provided by the author is that a Soviet ship is oveheated. With two people in body bags the captain worried that his next assignment would be a garbage scow. Arkady discovered the Naval intelligence connection to the girl Zina, someone named Nikolai. He finally stumbled across a deep issue, a reason for his employment as an The plot continues--eventful, exciting, tangled. This is in the style of John Le Carre. It is excellent.
Rating:
Summary: Renko's "reawakening"
Review: Awesomely done...brilliantly paced. Renko appears as a conundrum to everyone he encounters within this novel---is he KGB? Is he crazy? Perhpas they should have left him on the "slime line" after all...
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I read in 1995
Review: Besides some books by my favourite authors, this is one of the two best books I've read in 1995. (the other one is Lionel Davidson's Kolimsky Heights)(O.K., now Martin Cruz Smith and Lionel Davidson are also some of my favourite authors).
I didn't find Gorky Park overwhelming (well, I read a German edition first, and later found out that the text was shortened, so there was something lost), and I don't generally read lots of these kind of thrillers but this one I enjoied for two reasons: the kind of 'Murder-in-a-closed-community'-plot did apply to my normal favourite themes, and it's simply written extremely well.
Oh, yes - I did like Arkady Renko very much, I'm quite bored of all these heroes, and he's a nice change. Another reason I enjoied this book is all the subtle humour in it, I never laughed as much about a serious thriller as about this one (or any thriller at all).
Rating:
Summary: hero of "Gorky Park" returns
Review: During the early days of Glasnost, the fishing-factory ship "Polar Star" sails the polar waters of the North Pacific in a cooperative deal with the Americans. With the Soviet State still in existence, communism is still the rule. The agreement with the Americans is therefore on thin ice. When the body of one of the ship's crew, a beautiful and bold Georgian girl named Zina, comes up with the latest catch of Pollack, the Captain calls for investigation. Unfortunately, the only man capable of running the investigation is a disgraced, and probably fugitive former Moscow investigator named Arkady Renko. Yeah, that's right, the guy from "Gorky Park" (who would also go on to witness the abortive 1991 coup in "Red Square" and post-Soviet Cuba in "Havana Bay"). If you haven't read any of those books, I see no reason why you can't start with this one - though they're all worthy reads. Renko, a loyal soviet police detective, proved too loyal by the end of "Gorky Park", in which he unmasked a conspiracy involving murder and sable-smuggling. In "Star", we learn that Renko was locked away in an asylum - probably to keep him from implicating any higher-ups in the events of "Park". He is sprung from prison by an unlikely ally - KGB General Pribluda, a man Renko once tried to implicate in multiple murder. Free, after a fashion, Renko knows that he's marked, and wisely flees Moscow, braves the wastes of Siberia (where car engines run all night long to keep from freezing) and manages to arrive in Vladivostok. Desperate to elude re-capture, Renko takes the lowest job on ship - the "slime-line". By the time of Zina's death, Renko hasn't left the ship in a year. Dragooned by Captain Marchuk into the investigation, Renko pursues leads that may implicate the Americans in smuggling drugs, or the "Polar Star's" communist masters in using the ship to spy on the Americans. Now out of the ship's hold, Renko's search for answers brings him to Nastasha, a beautiful but loyal communist "with eyes as black as Stalin, but nice", Susan, a golden girl who seems to symbolize the promise of American prosperity, and Karp, a viscious thug with a penchant for murder and a grudge against Renko. Though Karp is an obvious suspect, Renko finds plenty of reason to suspect just about everybody - and soon all begin to regret calling him to the case. "Polar Star" excels on its full-blooded and sympathetic characters and wonderfully nuanced perspectives. (Is Karp really bad? We're not sure. Regardless of the answer, he's a presence we can't forget). The mystery, the setting and the characters make "Polar Star" poles apart from lesser novels.
Rating:
Summary: hero of "Gorky Park" returns
Review: During the early days of Glasnost, the fishing-factory ship "Polar Star" sails the polar waters of the North Pacific in a cooperative deal with the Americans. With the Soviet State still in existence, communism is still the rule. The agreement with the Americans is therefore on thin ice. When the body of one of the ship's crew, a beautiful and bold Georgian girl named Zina, comes up with the latest catch of Pollack, the Captain calls for investigation. Unfortunately, the only man capable of running the investigation is a disgraced, and probably fugitive former Moscow investigator named Arkady Renko. Yeah, that's right, the guy from "Gorky Park" (who would also go on to witness the abortive 1991 coup in "Red Square" and post-Soviet Cuba in "Havana Bay"). If you haven't read any of those books, I see no reason why you can't start with this one - though they're all worthy reads. Renko, a loyal soviet police detective, proved too loyal by the end of "Gorky Park", in which he unmasked a conspiracy involving murder and sable-smuggling. In "Star", we learn that Renko was locked away in an asylum - probably to keep him from implicating any higher-ups in the events of "Park". He is sprung from prison by an unlikely ally - KGB General Pribluda, a man Renko once tried to implicate in multiple murder. Free, after a fashion, Renko knows that he's marked, and wisely flees Moscow, braves the wastes of Siberia (where car engines run all night long to keep from freezing) and manages to arrive in Vladivostok. Desperate to elude re-capture, Renko takes the lowest job on ship - the "slime-line". By the time of Zina's death, Renko hasn't left the ship in a year. Dragooned by Captain Marchuk into the investigation, Renko pursues leads that may implicate the Americans in smuggling drugs, or the "Polar Star's" communist masters in using the ship to spy on the Americans. Now out of the ship's hold, Renko's search for answers brings him to Nastasha, a beautiful but loyal communist "with eyes as black as Stalin, but nice", Susan, a golden girl who seems to symbolize the promise of American prosperity, and Karp, a viscious thug with a penchant for murder and a grudge against Renko. Though Karp is an obvious suspect, Renko finds plenty of reason to suspect just about everybody - and soon all begin to regret calling him to the case. "Polar Star" excels on its full-blooded and sympathetic characters and wonderfully nuanced perspectives. (Is Karp really bad? We're not sure. Regardless of the answer, he's a presence we can't forget). The mystery, the setting and the characters make "Polar Star" poles apart from lesser novels.
|
