But again, Renko being Renko, the detective manages to annoy enough people that the villains start to make mistakes.Ĭuriously enough for a book set in 1991, quite a bit of the central mystery actually has to do with the earliest days of the USSR. At the time, Germany was coping with its Reunification and Renko’s investigation doesn’t even manage to get on anyone’s back burner. He manages to wrangle a visa and a plane ticket to the city. One of Renko’s bosses and his partner are killed-which makes it impossible for the detective to quit, even if there’s almost nothing to go on. Someone wants to know, “Where is Red Square?” But why ask Rudy the mafiya banker when one could just consult a Moscow guidebook?Īs Renko digs into Rudy’s life, a few more clues show up. All Renko has to go on are the stories from the mafiya leaders, Rudy’s appointment with an art professor, and a weird fax message that keeps getting sent to Rudy’s machine. Rudy’s apartment is so clean that there are few leads. Renko being Renko, he ignores his bosses and keeps looking for the person or people who killed Rudy. Renko’s bosses were wondering what the detective was doing with Rudy banker anyway and are happy to just close the case. All their leads-members of different mafiya groups-are pointing the finger at each other. Renko and his partner, Jaak, are working with the banker to Moscow’s various mafiyawhen first one, then another, explosion destroy the banker and the banker’s car-and all of the banker’s records. Renko spends most of this book in Munich and Berlin, so there’s a real chance that his country won’t be there when he returns. And, oh yeah, the Soviet Union is going to collapse any day.

A couple of witnesses had been killed after talking to him. At this point, Renko has been attacked a couple of times. At one point in Red Square, by Martin Cruz Smith, one of Arkady Renko’s temporary partners turns to the battered detective and asks, “Renko, do you ever feel like the plague?” (248*).

Red Square by Martin Cruz Smith