Summer Reading Project, BookLikes Satellite

After Arkady Renko’s last case (Gorky Park) ended in a Phyrric victory, he was interned in a Soviet hospital and diagnosed with “sluggish schizophrenia.” (The theory behind this diagnosis was that anyone who acted against the state was clearly insane.) Martin Cruz Smith’s novel Polar Star begins a few years after Renko’s ignoble dismissal from the Moscow militia. When we finally catch up to him, Renko is working on the “slime line” on a factory ship. He’s run as far east as he can to get away from the KGB and the men who want to put him back in the hospital or a prison. Renko keeps his head down and cuts up fish. His plan might have worked if a female crewmember hadn’t been murdered and the ship’s captain hadn’t found out about Renko’s experience as an investigator...

Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.