Arkady Renko Series

Arkady Renko Series

Arkady Renko is a fictional detective who is the central character of eight novels by the American writer Martin Cruz Smith. In Gorky Park, the first novel, he is a chief investigator for the Soviet Militsiya in Moscow, where he is in charge of homicide investigations. In the sequels, he takes on roles varying from a militiaman to a worker on a fish processing ship in the arctic. Born into the nomenklatura, Arkady is the son of Red Army General Kiril Renko, an unrepentant Stalinist also known as "the Butcher", who sees Arkady as a bitter failure for choosing the simple life of a policeman over a military career, or even a career in the Communist Party. Arkady was also never able to forgive himself for indirectly and unwittingly helping his mother commit suicide (he helped her gather the rocks she used to drown herself with in the lake at their family estate when he was a young boy). Wary of the official lies of Soviet society, Arkady exposes corruption and dishonesty on the part of influential and well-protected members of the elite, regardless of the consequences. When exposed to Western capitalist society, he finds it to be equally corrupt and returns to the Soviet Union. Despite this, and his own tough nature, he emerges as a man capable of displaying both compassion and a faith in the future.Arkady Renko is a fictional detective who is the central character of eight novels by the American writer Martin Cruz Smith. In Gorky Park, the first novel, he is a chief investigator for the Soviet Militsiya in Moscow, where he is in charge of homicide investigations. In the sequels, he takes on roles varying from a militiaman to a worker on a fish processing ship in the arctic. Born into the nomenklatura, Arkady is the son of Red Army General Kiril Renko, an unrepentant Stalinist also known as "the Butcher", who sees Arkady as a bitter failure for choosing the simple life of a policeman over a military career, or even a career in the Communist Party. Arkady was also never able to forgive himself for indirectly and unwittingly helping his mother commit suicide (he helped her gather the rocks she used to drown herself with in the lake at their family estate when he was a young boy). Wary of the official lies of Soviet society, Arkady exposes corruption and dishonesty on the part of influential and well-protected members of the elite, regardless of the consequences. When exposed to Western capitalist society, he finds it to be equally corrupt and returns to the Soviet Union. Despite this, and his own tough nature, he emerges as a man capable of displaying both compassion and a faith in the future.

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