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Showing posts from November, 2011

Stalin's Ghost by Martin Cruz Smith

Another good novel by Martin Cruz Smith. Read "Gorky Park" and "Nightwing" before. The novel begins with a homicide to which Arkady Renko arrives that is already being investigated by Nikolai Isaakov and Marat Urman. In parallel, Arkady finds himself assigned to a case of people claiming to see Stalin at a railway station. Both of them are connected because the sightings of Stalin are just a publicity stunt for a political party called "Russian Patriots" with Isaakov as their main candidate. The homicide on the other hand is Isaakov trying to wipe out references to his rather shady past in the military while serving in Chechenya. Arkady's father was a General in the Army during Stalin's time. References to his father are not particularly affectionate and probably are the origins of Arkady's disillusionment with the Soviet system. Maybe that is also a reason why drifts towards Eva. Eva was a doctor who served during Chechenya and tended to both