Wolves Eat Dogs

Arkady Renko #5

by Martin Cruz Smith

In Wolves Eat Dogs, Renko returns for his most enigmatic and baffling case: the death of one of Russia's new billionaires, which leads him to Chernobyl and the Zone of Exclusion -- closed to the world since 1986's nuclear disaster. It is still aglow with radioactivity, now inhabited only by the militia, shady scavengers, a few reckless scientists, and some elderly peasants who refuse to relocate. Renko's journey to this ghostly netherworld, the crimes he uncovers there, and the secrets they reveal about the New Russia make for an unforgettable adventure.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Russia, Crime, Mystery Thriller, Detective

Hardcover

First published November 16, 2004

About the author

Martin Cruz Smith (AKA Simon Quinn, Nick Carter, Jake Logan, and Martin Quinn) was an American writer of mystery and suspense fiction, mostly in an international or historical setting. He was best known for his 11-book series featuring Russian investigator Arkady Renko, who was introduced in 1981 with Gorky Park and appeared in Independence Square (2023) and Hotel Ukraine (2025). [Wikipedia]

Reviews

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

In this fifth book in the 'Arkady Renko' series, the Moscow police detective is sent to the devastated area near Chernobyl to investigate a death. The book can be read as a standalone.

*****

As the story opens it's 2004 and the Soviet Union has dissolved into separate states. Some savvy former physicists have taken advantage of the chaos to become multi-millionaires and Arkady Renko - determined as always - is still a police investigator in Moscow.



One of the nouveau millionaires, Pasha Ivanov - head of NoviRus Security - has (apparently) jumped to his death from his 10-story Moscow apartment after exhibiting increasingly peculiar behavior.



Renko insists on looking into Ivanov's demise despite the objections of his boss, Prosecutor Zurin, who wants the whole business wrapped up pronto.



Renko finds some odd things in Ivanov's apartment, like a closet floor covered with salt, but eventually concedes that the former physicist's death looks like suicide.



Fast forward a few weeks and Renko is stationed more than 400 miles from Moscow in "The Zone." This is the area surrounding Chernobyl (in the Ukraine) - where a catastrophic nuclear accident occurred in 1986.





It seems that Ivanov's successor at NoviRus, Lev Timofeyev, was found murdered near a Chernobyl cemetery and Prosecutor Zurin - seeing this as a good opportunity to get Renko out of his hair - sends him to "investigate."



People in The Zone were evacuated after the accident and the current sparse population around Chernobyl includes scientists studying the aftermath of the disaster; elderly people who've snuck back to their old homes; some squatters, thieves, scavengers, and poachers; and a small contingent of military/police personnel.



Law enforcement in the area is sketchy at best and the head cop, Commander Marchenko, doesn't want his record marred by a homicide. Still, he's not happy about Renko sticking his nose into local affairs.



As it turns out Renko is unable to make much headway with the investigation since the crime scene was seriously mishandled and contaminated, the squatters who found the body can't be found, and no one will tell him anything. Still, Renko continues his inquiries, becoming acquainted with some of the local scientists and residents......



- and possibly being exposed to radiation and radioactive food.



Pretty soon someone in The Zone is shot dead and a former cohort of Ivanov's shows up in Chernobyl to 'help' Renko.

Meanwhile Renko has become a sort of 'big brother' to Zhenya, a troubled 11-year-old boy living in a Moscow orphanage.



On Sundays Renko would take Zhenya to an amusement park, though the boy never spoke to him or even acknowledged his presence. Still, Zhenya began acting out when Renko left for Chernobyl, and Renko's one-sided phone conversations with the boy demonstrate a bit of his softer (and more imaginative) side.

The strength of the story lies mostly in the descriptions of The Zone - the creepy bleak atmosphere, destruction, desolation, cancers, deaths, plants, animals, people, etc. Renko even meets a former military man who's in denial about the disaster, claiming it isn't radiation that destroyed The Zone but rather 'radiophobia' (fear of radiation).

As Renko investigates various crimes he gets threatened and beat up; chases a thief on a motorcycle; takes a trip to Kiev; drinks too much; becomes involved with a woman; visits a Jewish tomb; and more.



In time Renko solves the murders but the motive for the crime spree seems overly convoluted and unconvincing (to me). Still, the Russian and Ukranian settings are interesting and I enjoyed catching up with Renko, who always manages to stay alive and keep (or regain) his job against all odds.

I'd recommend the book to mystery readers, especially fans of Martin Cruz Smith.

You can follow my reviews at https://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot....

[Mal Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over the years, I made two trips to the Soviet Union. The first time was in 1965, in the course of a four-month knockabout through the USSR, Eastern and Central Europe, and Scandinavia before my Peace Corps service started. (That was the trip during which I was threatened by East German Vopos (Volkspolizei) at Hitler’s bunker and briefly confined under gunpoint in a Romanian secret prison.) My second, less harrowing trip, came in 1989 as a member of a delegation organized by one of my nonprofit clients to meet with the Soviet foreign policy hierarchy.

During the first trip I glimpsed a country still slowly recovering from the unimaginable devastation of World War II, and still understandably bitter about the experience. Everything seemed gray: the cities, the skies, the clothing, the people. On my second visit I viewed a nation in its death throes, just months before its final collapse. There wasn’t much visible difference from one trip to the other despite the passage of a quarter-century. Everything was still gray.

Now I have Martin Cruz Smith to guide me through the successors to the USSR another quarter-century later — in Wolves Eat Dogs, both Russia and Ukraine. Through his eyes, I observe an environment vastly changed in so many ways, yet essentially the same in others. The Russian character endures: stolid yet endlessly romantic, pessimistic, and prone to alcoholism. Still gray, by and large. The corruption of officialdom is expressed in different ways but is fundamentally unchanged. The skylines of the big cities bristle with gleaming high-rise towers, offering a glamorous and colorful lifestyle to the few who can afford it, while the overwhelming majority of the people still languish in poverty. All that is changed is the veneer of the New Russia, dedicated to the proposition that everyone is entitled to get rich and escape the stigma of the past.

In Wolves Eat Dogs, it is 2004. The intrepid investigator, Arkady Renko, and his alcoholic detective-partner, Victor, are called to the scene of what everyone, from Renko’s boss to the friends and business associates of the deceased, calls a suicide. Though Renko has questions — he always has questions — the matter is considered closed. The man who jumped from a 10th-floor window onto a Moscow sidewalk was one of Russia’s richest and most powerful men. Nonetheless, Renko pursues an investigation — despite orders not to do so. He embarks upon a lengthy and painful journey that takes him to the radioactive hulks of Chernobyl and into the depths of depravity in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

In the course of his investigation, Renko learns what really happened at the huge nuclear power station that experienced the worst meltdown in history, even more terrible than the Fukushima disaster a quarter-century later. Wolves Eat Dogs is worth reading for that bit of imaginative speculation alone.

[Ebb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cruz Smith has a way with words. A very heady, intoxicating way. As a matter of fact he's having his way with me right now.

I'm reading the gritty yet dream-like Wolves Eat Dogs. It's unlike other crime fiction on the market. Too many books in this genre fall prey to "galloping gore". Thrillers that provide a series of ever-escalating shocks all the while ratcheting up the pace. So much rush-rush designed to obscure the truly bad writing. I mostly avoid those shelves at the bookshop.

But I was stuck for several hours in Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport and the lone kiosk appeared to have a boatload of crap for sale. Then I saw, on the bottom shelf, this little gem. Amazon in the US has the cover seen at left. Meh. The UK cover is much better. All dark-grey destroyed-forest realism with a howling wolf at centre stage. Very appropriate to the tale.

Cruz Smith approaches the story slowly. He's more concerned about the characters than is customary. Renko isn't a compilation of over-used stereotypes. The story doesn't unfold so much as slowly unwind. A spiral of revisted scenes, revisited lives. You care as much about the secondary characters as you do about the crime.

He writes economically, smoothly. Nothing grandiose. Nothing over the top. He shocks you with a throw way image. An unexpected revelation that resonates with sensory truths:

"He lifted his ear to the muffled flight of an owl and the soft explosion that marked the likely demise of a mouse. Leaves swirled around the bike. All Chernobyl was reverting to nature. Sometimes it crept in while he watched."

or

"You're sure you latched the cow's stall? She could have been eaten by wolves. The wolves could have gotten her."
Roman acted deaf, while Lydia, the cow, peeked through an open slat of her stall; the two put Arkady in mind of a pair of drunks who remembered nothing.

It's rich and delicious and worth reading slowly.

Take my word for it.

[Berengaria · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

Total transparency: I ADORE Arkady Renko. For me, he's a character so rounded, he's got to exist "in real" somewhere. So, biased review to follow...😉

In Wolves Eat Dogs Renko becomes involved in the non-investigation of the murder by radioactive particles of a "New Russian" (= former have-not turned millionaire). All roads lead to Chernobyl in Ukraine and that's where the majority of the novel takes place.

If you ever wanted to feel like you've been way too close to radioactive material and are glowing in the dark yourself, this story will do it. The descriptions of the "black villages" the ones so contaminated they can't be buried nor torn down, the forests that have been stained red, but how nature is still there and thriving, are more than a personal tour around the contamination zone. They are so atmospheric and detailed you feel as if you're right there with Renko waving around your geiger counter and hoping you're not stepping anywhere too "hot" and killing yourself.

Quite intense. And a fantastic piece of writing (if perhaps a bit repetitive after a while. Rather like Havana Bay).)

The mystery/thriller part is one of those 'hidden in plain sight' ones that you can guess at, but even at the end there are still holes and unfilled-in details left. The characters are well-drawn and authentic feeling, as always and I'm sure many of the historic details about the area surrounding Chernobyl are accurate -- which makes the narrative and the accident there even more tragic -- and explains why people still live and work there.

An excellent edition to the Arkadi Renko series!

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

After I read Voices From Chernobyl, someone told me about Wolves Eat Dogs. I am glad I read it because it makes a good companion piece to the other book. On the other hand, if I hadn't read Voices first, I would have been seriously lost.

Because Smith's book is a political/crime thriller, the pace is fast, the brutality is frequent, and the plot is thick. But he does address the Soviet government corruption and cover up of the nuclear meltdown as well as that of the Russian mafia after the fall of the Soviet Union. He truly brings that gnarly situation alive and so makes the point that humans cannot be trusted with nuclear power as did Voices From Chernobyl.

Svetlana Alexievich hinted at such things via the people she interviewed but she is Russian and has been viewed with suspicion by her government. Martin Cruz Smith is American.

Wolves Eat Dogs (a comment made often by the people who live near Chernobyl) is the 5th book in Smith's Arkady Renko series. I think I read Gorky Park way back when. I think I might read the rest one day.

[Bruce · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find detective novels, especially mysteries, a tough genre to review. On the one hand, you want to avoid spoilers so as not to spoil the fun. On the other, you still want to provide enough information to give prospective readers a reasonable sense of what to expect. I think there are no spoilers here, but then I think it's always fair game to identify the book's protagonist, setting, style (tone), principal plot (that is, what the detective is originally instructed to solve), and my overall impressions be they aesthetic, intellectual, or both. It seems to me that this is fair, given that all except my opinions are given either on the book's coverleaf or else in the opening pages. Still, if you are one of those who finds these to be spoilers, stop reading now.

Wolves Eat Dogs is the fifth of six works in Martin Cruz Smith's ongoing Arkady Renko series, which he kicked off with the transcendent Gorky Park (made into an equally-transcendent movie starring William Hurt, Brian Dennehy, and Lee Marvin, thanks in no small part to Dennis Potter's ultra-literary script adaptation, Potter being the writer of The Singing Detective and Pennies from Heaven fame). But I digress. If you know this series -- and you should -- then you know that Renko is the incongruously incorruptible detective whose fate it is to be eternally in conflict with the employers and environment he knows to be wholly corrupted. He exists in curt, cryptic prose of a sort appropriate to a screenplay. He is also a means for capturing snapshots of Cruz Smith's Soviet Russia in transition.

Don’t agree? How else to explain the apparent agelessness of the protagonist, a man who has been in his 30s for about 30 years. Here’s the series in a nutshell:

- Gorky Park situates the detective in 1980 Soviet Russia, a place static and corrupt, where high-ranking members of the Party move its citizens about an invisible chessboard in an endless quest for personal advantage.

- Polar Star, much like John Le Carre's superior (if less humorous) Russia House, bounces Renko off CIA and KGB re-agents coping with their transitioning roles at the end of the Cold War circa 1989-1990.

- In Red Square, Cruz Smith makes Arkady witness to the evolution of Eastern Europe circa 1995 as seen through the perspective of the changing black market, one moving from patronage by Party members to control by the emerging Russian Mafia (same actors, different costumes).

- Then in Havana Bay, we have a Russian-eye-view of the consequences of Russia’s economically necessitated desertion of Cuba (close on the turn of the 21st century).

- Wolves Eat Dogs has Renko wander through the aftermath of Chernobyl, a full generation (20 years) after the disaster.

- Last but not least, Stalin's Ghost (which I have just begun to read as of this writing and which is the latest in the series to date) would seem to juxtapose present-day nostalgia for the wretched dictator with the historic reality of 60 years ago, in the process (I hope) of examining the price of such patriotic amnesia.

But back to Wolves and its plot. Renko is launched into his investigation when a "New Russian" (read, a capitalist-made as opposed to mafia-made millionaire) is found dead outside his exclusive apartment building. Suicide or murder? And what's the meaning of all the salt in his closet?

As detective fiction goes, this book seems to me to be the weakest in the series. The author makes use of so many dei ex machinae to rescue Renko from peril you’d think his name was Pauline. As bad are the final chapters, which read to me like an afterthought of queued-up confessionals designed to resolve the whos and hows that the inspector was previously denied opportunity to discover independently.

But who cares? This isn’t a rhetorical question on my part. It is a trope of this series, a question with which Inspector Renko is explicitly confronted over and over in each book, including intermittently by his direct superior (the Senior Prosecutor). It is likewise a question to which Renko never really has a satisfactory answer – I assume because the author finds exposure of the plot to be less important than revelation of the system which makes it possible. In any case, you shouldn't read Wolves for the unspooling of its plot. Sure, the author is a competent storyteller, but as stated, this book is less about specific crimes than about the state tragedy that is Chernobyl. As such, the midsection of this book makes a terrific companion piece to any of the works in Richard Rhodes' nonfiction nuke trilogy. The rest can simply be skimmed.

[Carla · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a Martin Cruz Smith fan. He doesn't fit easily into categories. Yes, his books are mysteries, in the sense there's a crime, but they're literature because they examine universal human longings, motives, desires, those of the detective as well as the people he meets on his way to solving the crime.
Wolves eats dogs explores the blasted landscape of the exclusion zone around Chernoble, where people not only are still living, but they are surprisingly populous. There are scientists and old people who are gambling that old age will kill them before the radiation.

Most of these characters create obstacles to the investigation, and Arkady is, in effect, sent to exile by his own superiors who do not want his conclusions publicized. Everything is supposed to be on a curve towards success and respectability in the new Russia. No one wants the suppossed suicide to be a murder. Renko's opponents are the criminals, his own fatalism and the official script. He's the ultimate outsider.

Cruz writes like an articulate, droll and knowledgeable guide through the labyrinth. Arkady Renko is a detective because he is a detective. With all the drama and tragedy and farce in his life in pre-perestroika USSR and newly capitalistic Russia, whatever pursuit by killers - official and unofficial, his background mind is on the mark collecting the data, mapping out the logic, eliminating all the detritus until he reaches the conclusion that was, in looking back, the only explanation possible. I sink into reading his novels. Delicious

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me it's another enjoyable and highly readable Investigator Arkady Renko novel. Arkady is attempting to investigate the death of billionaire Pasha Ivanov. Everyone tries to make Arkady rule it a suicide and they impede his investigation all the way as usual but Arkady being the hound dog that he is forges on even though it costs him so much on the way. Loved the book and there are some great characters, especially his Detective Inspector friend Victor.

[Rossrn Nunamaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wolves Eat Dogs is the fifth Arkady Renko novel by Martin Cruz Smith.

In Wolves Eat Dogs, a new Russian Billionaire is found dead having plunged from the window of his apartment. On the scene it is quickly confirmed to be a suicide - no investigation required. Renko's observations and questions quickly point out that there are enough oddities to merit some investigation and from the get go Renko is once again not quite following orders.

New in this novel is Zhenya, a boy from an orphanage that Arkady Renko has in a roundabout way come to be his 'big brother' of sorts. Zhenya doesn't speak, but enjoys a routine trip to Gorky Park always clutching a chess set and book of fairy tales. Renko had attempted to track down his parents, but the boys lack of conversation thwarted him. Yet each week Renko picks the boy up and takes him out.

The majority of the book takes place in The Zone, Chernobyl, in the Ukraine. The land remains radioactive and is occupied by squatters, elderly who refused to move, militia, and scientists. It is a purgatory of sorts, surreal, and yet more real in that it is about base necessities. Renko is sent to the Zone when a partner of the first Russian Billionaire is found dead there. It is soon determined to be murder and Renko must try to determine the connection between this place, these men, and a third partner Bobby Hoffman, an American.

Throughout his stay the director of the orphanage calls to demand when he will return to Zhenya and insists he speak with the boy on the phone. The one sided conversations lead Renko to tell quite a fairy tale based on his experiences in the radioactive land. On more than one occasion Renko is led astray, betrayed, saved, but ultimately he solves the mystery.

The Renko crime thrillers began in 1981 with Gorky Park and continue to this summer's release of Stalin's Ghost, yet despite the length of time Smith has written only six novels featuring this character, not exactly a publishing production line. Instead, he has taken his time and depicted in vivid detail places many would not or could not go (Moscow in 1981, a soviet fishing ship, Moscow and Germany before the fall of the USSR, Cuba, and now Chernobyl) and planted within these unimaginable locations murders for investigator Renko to solve.

Renko himself is irresistible. Born to a great general of the Red Army, Renko is to him a failure for choosing to be a simple policeman. As a detective, Renko asks more questions than a child could muster, trusts no answer or individual, seeks the truth, and regularly fails to follow orders often intended to keep cases simple (not murder, a simple suicide).

Couple the investigator with the locations and you have great crime thrillers. Cruz Smith twice won the Hammett Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers and is a recipient of Britain's Golden Dagger Award. In short, he's good at this

[Davor Petričević · Rating 3 out of 5]

ČERNOBILSKE RADIOAKTIVNE INTRIGE

Prvi izlet u stvaralaštvo Martina Cruza Smitha donio je sa sobom podijeljene reakcije s moje strane. Smještaj intrige u postkomunističku zemlju dvadesetak godina nakon stravične nesreće u Černobilu je fantastično pogođen. Strahota koja je zadesila to područje i način preživljavanju u radioaktivnom području je sjajno opisan i zaista čitatelja navodi na detaljnije proučavanje nesreće i na taj dio nemam zamjerke, ali kad se radi o samoj radnji tu već postoje ozbiljni problemi.

Najveći problem romana su nelogični obrati i nejasni motivi likova pa čak i nakon pročitane knjige zaista nisam imao potrebe za detaljnijim promišljanjem njihove motivacije koja mi se činila definitivno nategnuta. Osim glavnog lika, koji je poprilično dobro okarakteriziran, sa ostalima nisam pronašao zadovoljavajuću razinu povezanost, gotovo bih rekao da su bili potrošna roba kako bi istražitelj Renko riješio još jedan slučaj. Uostalom i slijedeći citat u knjizi potvrđuje tu teoriju: „Ako je černobilska nuklearna katastrofa prouzročila smrt četrdesetero ili četiri milijun ljudi, ovisi o tome tko broji, koga brine što se dogodilo jednom jedinom čovjeku?“.

U osnovi sve se svodi na klasičan detektivski roman, koji na zanimljiv način donosi presjek generacije novih, mladih ruskih milijardera i kriminalitet koji uz to dolazi, propituje ulogu policije i njezinog nečinjena u skrivanju istine, utjecaju čovjeka na prirodu, život unutar Zone isključenja i beznađe ljudi; ali sve te ideje ostaju u drugom planu bez detaljnije razrade gurajući u prvi plan poprilično konfuzan slučaj.

Što se tiče samog serijala, ne isključujem mogućnost da se vratim pustolovinama karizmatičnog Arkadija Renka, ali vjerojatno ne u skoroj budućnosti. Usprkos zanimljivom smještaju i idejama koje roman otvara ipak se sve svodi na klasičan i ne pretjerano zanimljiv krimić pa je stoga konačna ocjena 3/5.


IZDVOJENI CITATI

„U zoni ima jelena, bizona, orlova, labudova. Černobilska Zona isključenja najbolji je rezervat divljih životinja u Europi jer su gradovi i sela napušteni i ceste prazne. Jer je uobičajena ljudska aktivnost gora za prirodu nego najveća nuklearna katastrofa u povijesti.

„Problem kapitalizma je što poslovni partneri imaju savršenu kombinaciju motiva i prilike za ubojstvo.“

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fifth of Smith's Renko series. A fantastic series featuring Russian Detective Arkady Renko, best known from the first book in the series, "Gorky Park," which was made into a movie starring William Hurt as Renko. In this, Renko investigates the presumed suicide of a Russian billionaire. This is in 'the new Russia" following the fall of the USSR, but the new Russia is every bit as corrupt and brutal as the old. Renko's investigation takes him to the newly independent state of Ukraine-and the Zone of Exclusion-Chernobyl.
What I love about this series is how Cruz brings Russia ( and Ukraine ) and its people alive. I have never been to Russia, but a book like this I feel has gotten me as close to gaining some kind of understanding of Russia as I can get without going there....

[Rich · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have read several books from this author including a couple of books in this series and not in this series. The only good part about this book was learning a little bit about Chornobyl accident in the 80's -but even that part was way way way to long and dragged. The ending was weak. I think he had a good idea for the book but really had no idea what to do with it. I only finished reading it because I had nothing lese to read lol. I am not sure I will read another book form him and I would say to not give this one a spin and to skip it.

[Lobstergirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Renko treks to Chernobyl to figure out why a Russian oligarch jumped to his death in Moscow, tries to make friends with an 11-year-old orphan boy who never speaks, and gets himself a toughass Chernobyl girlfriend. Thumbs up on Zhenya (the mute), thumbs down on Eva. I often don't get Renko's girlfriends.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Martin Cruz Smith's novels are so filled with darkness it is always with great effort that I read them. And yet I have been captivated by his depressed Russian sleuth Arkady Renko ever since "Gorky Park". So it stands to reason that I'd put myself through another of Cruz's dense, convoluted, heart-wrenchingly bleak accounts of Renko's doings.

"Wolves Eat Dogs" is set in the still-glowing horror of post-meltdown Chernobyl where Renko investigates the murder of a prominent "New Russian" that closely follows the death by suicide in Moscow of the man's billionaire associate (a case Renko had been pulled off by his boss).

Nothing about the case makes sense--including Renko's presence in this radioactive Ukrainian wasteland that is outside his jurisdiction. People work there. Many have returned there to live hidden lives, grow vegetable gardens that glow in the dark, and wait to die rather than accept the government's relocation to a safer place. Renko finds living quarters, meets some of the villagers and drinks their homemade spirits, and sets about doggedly working toward resolution.

What ultimately saves these novels and lifts them to a higher level are two things: Renko's keen eye, determination, and the ability to withstand misery to the point of martyrdom while still delivering wry one-liners; and, Cruz's talent for packing his novels with detailed information on situations and places normal mortals would never experience.

Cruz's understanding of Russian life as well as her downtrodden yet spunky world-view are based on years of research. After "Gorky Park" the author was forbidden for years to set foot in Russia, yet now his novels are as popular in that country as they are here. Thank goodness he is now welcomed on his research trips, for otherwise we would not have this Arkady Renko to give us a measure understanding and empathy as well as excellent mysteries.

[Althea Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just really love Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko spy thrillers. I like his other books too, but there's just something about these... I was really sad that after I read this book, there'd be no more that I hadn't read... and then I went online, and there's a new one out due next month! Yay! "Stalin's Ghost" is now on my wishlist...

In "Wolves Eat Dogs," the fifth in the series, investigator Renko is at the scene of the death of a prominent Russian businessman, who appears to have leaped out his window to his death - an obvious suicide. However, Renko has a hunch there's something more to this death - a feeling that's not looked kindly upon by either his superiors or the dead man's associates, who feel that any hint of a potential crime would tarnish Russian business' already-not-too-shining reputation.
Nevertheless, Renko stays doggedly on the case, and soon his persistence takes him to the wastelands of Chernobyl....
The crime (of course there's a crime!) is almost presciently relevant in today's political scene, and Cruz Smith really effectively not only does his research but uses it - I fully believed in the place and characters. I recently read a National Geographic article about the current state of the lands around Chernobyl, so I know that much of what Cruz Smith writes is accurate - but after reading his book, I feel that not only do I know, I understand.
Plus, the book was exciting and fun!

[Lois Baron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Splendid. I read Gorky Park, but not the two (three?) between that and this. I remember liking Gorky Park, and Wolves Eat Dogs reminds me why. Low-key, pessimistic Arkady Renko is a great character -- and the addition of a boy from an orphanage that Renko takes out once a week gives us more facets of Renko to appreciate. (Yes, that was a really bad sentence I just wrote.) I love Renko's dogged and constant asking of questions. And Martin Cruz Smith populates the book with secondary characters worth knowing.

I found the setting -- mostly around Chernobyl -- fascinating, along with a look at the "New Russia" and its nouveau riche. I learned a lot about the Chernobyl accident and aftermath.

[Sandi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good listen. Arkady Renko was as fascinating as ever and the plot, which revolved around "New Russians" who have made a killing with capitalism and site of the Chernobyl disaster, was both interesting and suspenseful. Listened to the audio version which was ably narrated by Henry Strozier.

[Jacob Arruda · Rating 3 out of 5]

6/10: Forgettable mystery thriller, not bad but has a rushed and somewhat predictable ending. Did enjoy all the Chernobyl parts and such but i wasn’t really expecting much going in, and i wasn’t floored or disappointed.

[Helene · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got so absorbed in this audiobook that I ended up driving to New Haven instead of New London. Good solid crime novel with an interesting description of Siberia, a place on my travel bucket list.

[Aysegul Ozkan · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my opinion, Arkady Renko is one the most underappreciated detectives of the fiction world. He is tenacious. He is loyal. He has a good heart.

After Cuba, he was now in Ukraine's Exclusion Zone of Chernobyl of all places trying to find the murderer of two rich "new money" Russians.

I really liked the slow flow of the events in Renko's world and everything coming together step by step. His interaction with eleven-year-old Zhenya was written beautifully. And of course, Martin Cruz Smith has very powerful words about Chernobyl and people around it. I really really enjoyed the book.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this one from start to finish.

“Smith's first Arkady Renko novel, Gorky Park, became a best seller because it offered American readers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at a world closed off to them. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, it would seem that Smith had nothing left to write about. But as he proved with Red Square and Havana Bay, the new Russia offers a rich source of material (and crimes). This time cynical but honest senior investigator Renko must determine whether the defenestration death of a Russian tycoon was suicide or murder. The discovery of radioactive salt in the dead man's apartment leads Renko to the abandoned Ukrainian towns of Chernobyl and Pripyat, still dangerously contaminated 18 years after the world's deadliest nuclear accident. There he finds a ghostly world inhabited by scavengers, elderly villagers, and a small group of Russian militia and scientists. As Renko pursues his investigation, he uncovers a greater crime, the sad legacy of Soviet ineptitude and corruption. Smith's latest is filled with the same eye for detail and fully developed characters that made Gorky Park so compelling. Fans will snap up.”—Wilda Williams, Library Journal

[Ed Mestre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another in the Arkady Renko mysteries who first appeared in Gorky Park. Much has changed in Russia since the Gorky Park days. For one the Soviet Union has broken apart. For him to go to Chernobyl in the Ukraine he must now travel to another country. The new economy has created billionaires & the disparity the October revolution sought to eliminate. For example while still in Moscow he spots a billboard advertisement where there used to be Communist propaganda. He describes it like on a street corner where a madman used to rant has been replaced by the slickest of salesmen. And that is Martin Cruz Smith's great strength. In the sparest & simplest terms he can get to the core of a description. He did this in his non-Renko novel Rose. Instead of modern Russia we were generations back in a U.K. mining town. I never felt the claustrophobia of descending into a coal mine as I did in that novel. Here the descent is into the dead zone around the nuclear power plant disaster where no one is supposed to be, but thanks to scavengers, poachers, looters, & the elderly who refuse to leave, is populated by almost literal phantoms. Again Cruz takes you there without extravagance. You might feel like checking yourself for radioactive exposure when you're done reading.

[Liam · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the tiny handful of people who actually pay attention will no doubt have noticed, I almost never read fiction anymore. I did read a fair amount of fiction (as well as poetry and various & random other types of books) when I was younger, and when I was a child I quite literally read anything I could get my hands on. In those days, I was a text-book example, par excellence, of a voracious and indiscriminate reader. At some point when I was in my thirties, however, I cut out most other types of books to focus much more on history and music. It wasn't a purposeful (or really even conscious) decision; it just sort of ended up like that, and I didn't notice until later.

Occasionally, I need a break from that. Sometimes I am so annoyed and stressed out by the world in general that any attempt to read more politico-military history at that particular moment is likely going to end, quickly, with the book slammed down and me pacing around distractedly chain-smoking and cursing under my breath. When the books about music don't help anymore, or even worse begin to have a similar effect, I know it's really just about time to take a break. For whatever reason, mystery novels and/or spy novels seem to work extremely well as stress-reducers, at least for me. Possibly that is because I've been reading them since I was in kindergarten*, but quite honestly I have no idea why. In any case, I've always found decently written genre-fiction to be a useful "palette cleanser", regardless of its utility in the dissipation of stress.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed a blurb on the side of my Goodreads feed which indicated that Martin Cruz Smith had apparently recently released a new volume in the Arkady Renko series. I had previously read three of the first four books in the series (all but #3), which is probably why Goodreads (a.k.a. Amazon) decided to notify me of the release of the newest one. I had read the fourth book in the series just over sixteen years ago, but Mr. Smith is one of the few remaining mystery writers I know of who are any good, so the blurb did in fact pique my interest. I figured that the next few books in the series would probably be extremely inexpensive by this time (they were), and would probably also be a fairly good diversion which would, moreover, require far less effort than searching through my many remaining boxes to find any of the mystery novels I already own, the contents of which I have largely forgotten at this point.

I had no idea whatsoever that this book was largely set in Ukraine (much less the Chernobyl exclusion zone), and given that fact, reading this at the present time was a bit disconcerting, if not straight-up bizarre & weird. This is particularly due to the fact that just over two months ago, the Russian armed forces hit the so-called "New Safe Confinement", the massive steel carapace which has covered the crumbling Soviet-era containment structure (commonly called the "sarcophagus") since late 2017. Every time one of the characters in this book referred to the sarcophagus, it quite literally made my skin crawl. All the discussion about the various protocols for limiting the dispersal of radioactive materials made for somewhat uncomfortable reading given all the damage done within the exclusion zone by the apparently moronic scum of the Russian Army, at great risk not only to the people living in adjacent areas of Ukraine and Belarus, but also to their own stupid asses. If someone had told me in 2004, when this book was published, that in a bit more than twenty years the world would become so accustomed to regular nuclear threats and blackmail that it would make the hottest years of the cold war seem like a quaint children's game, that there would be regular, common occurrences of incredibly dangerous (and quite frankly insane) attacks on nuclear sites (all carried out by the Russian armed forces) involving tube artillery, missiles of various types, rocket-propelled grenades and drones, I would probably not have believed them. If I had been further informed that much of the world would simply shrug its collective shoulders and say "whatever...", and would in many cases be more concerned with turning a quick profit (whether political or financial) from the situation than taking any action whatsoever to mitigate the danger to anyone (including their own worthless asses), I might have had some trouble believing that as well.

In addition to all that, obviously, the entire situation surrounding the Ukraine War over the last decade made reading this book more than a little bit creepy anyway; if I had known what this book was about, I probably would not have chosen to read it right at this moment, specifically for that reason. All that being said, however, it is just as good as Mr. Smith's previous installations in the saga of Senior Investigator Arkady Renko, and this is about as good a book as you are likely to find in terms of modern mystery novels. In fact, by present standards, this is about as good as it gets for any sort of genre fiction; standards seem to have fallen through the floor during the last three decades or so, but Martin Cruz Smith does not seem to have cut any corners or dumbed-down his writing, or at least he hadn't by 2004. I am actually looking forward to reading further into this series...



*In those days, I was reading a lot of Stratemeyer Syndicate books (and other similar stuff)- mostly the Hardy Boys books (by "Franklin W. Dixon") and Nancy Drew books (by "Carolyn Keene"). Within a couple of years, though, I was already into Agatha Christie and Rex Stout...

[Pturingan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read all the Arkady Renko books and I have to say that this (along with Polar Star) has got to be my favorite. I'm a big fan of the Arkady Renko character although I never thought that I would be at first. I thought I would get tired of an endlessly pessimistic, self-defeatist character like Renko but he just keeps getting better every time. I love the fact that he always expects the worst, never expects to win, seems to have a death wish, and yet always solves the case in the end. I also love that the author keeps sending him into more and more extreme situations everytime and this one has to be one of the most extreme locations possible as he tries to do detective work in the exclusion zone around Chernobyl.

[Melinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a fan of MCS and the Arkady Renko series. Smith is an adroitly intelligent writer, one who makes you feel as though you're hearing the story from someone who has lived all his life in the USSR/Russia and someone who knows where all the bodies are buried. I found the background on Chernobyl horrifying and fascinating, and I liked the spiked humor in the relationship between Renko and the silent child he fitfully attempts to mentor. This is the thinking reader's character-driven procedural novel and, for me, another engaging date with one of the most interesting cops out there.

[Pauline · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate the setting, the characters, and the tale. The bulk of this book is set in the Ukraine and deals with the impact of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power disaster on people's lives in the small towns near the accident. Assigning blame for the accident becomes part of the tale. A subtext is Arkady Renko's experience with a young boy abandoned in Moscow by his father.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Renko tackles fallout in this one, both of the literal and emotional kind, with powerful results. I'll say, though, that I heartily recommend Atlas Obscura as a companion piece to this one - the link will take you to photos of this book's setting, and the site more broadly is pretty cool too.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mostly entertaining and relatively light read (in the sense that it won't change the world). Apparently I like detective stories set in Russia.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.8⭐

A story of revenge, set in Chernobyl and Moscow. Not Smith's best work, still pretty good compared to anyone else.

[Elizabeth (Alaska) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book opens with Arkady Renko looking down from a 10th floor window onto the body of a man lying in the street. Most assume it was a suicide, but Arkady isn't so sure. Pasha Ivanov is of Russia's new billionaire class. I am reminded that Christie's Poirot always asked "who benefits". In this series, Arkady always casts the wider question of motive - which, technically, isn't always who benefits.

Soon, we find Arkady sent off to Chernobyl. One of Ivanov's partners has been found dead at Chernobyl and not of radiation poisoning. Was Ivanov murdered or did he commit suicide and are the two deaths related?

Surprisingly, there are people who have returned to their homes near Chernobyl. A quote from an eco-researcher:

"See how stunted and deformed the tip is. It will never grow into a tree, only scrub. But it's a step in the right direction. The administration is pleased with our new pines." Alex spread his arms and announced. "In two hundred and fifty years, all this will be clean. Exept for th eplutonium; that will take twenty-five thousand years."

Despite the bleakness of the setting, this was another good installment of the series. The story is well told, although I admit it lagged a bit in the middle. I especially liked the ending and think there might be a couple of carry over characters in the next installment. I look forward to it. This one is 4-stars, probably hanging out in the middle of that group.