Scan barcode
A review by tasmanian_bibliophile
Three Stations by Martin Cruz Smith
3.0
‘Life is unfair. Why should death be any different?’
This is the seventh novel to feature Arkady Renko, a series which began in 1981 with ‘Gorky Park’. Renko was a young officer on the way up in ‘Gorky Park’, in ‘Three Stations’ he is on the way down. Technically, Renko has been suspended from the prosecutor’s office and is about to be forced out by superiors uncomfortable with the way in which he continues to inconveniently solve cases and bring the guilty to account.
The novel opens with Maya, a teenage mother, travelling to Moscow by train. Maya is fleeing from the past and is looking for a better life for her and her baby. Maya is rescued from a soldier by an older woman – but then awakens in the Three Stations train station at the Komsomol Square deprived of both her daughter and her possessions. Zhenya, the fifteen year old orphan previously rescued by Renko (‘Wolves Eat Dogs’), tries to help her.
At the same time, Renko is helping Victor Orlov investigate a suspicious death in a derelict trailer in another area of Three Stations. It seems that the dead woman is a prostitute and most likely dead of a drug overdose. This, for his superiors, is enough to rule out homicide. Renko does not agree and his subsequent investigations, even after he is fired, reveal a complex case.
I read this novel in one sitting, caught up in Smith’s vivid and gritty description of a corrupt and dysfunctional Moscow. The dual storylines: Renko trying to solve a murder; and Zhenya and Maya searching for baby Katya showcase the contrasts in a Moscow where gangs of homeless children co-exist together with the corruptly wealthy who can buy anything – including children - for a price.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
This is the seventh novel to feature Arkady Renko, a series which began in 1981 with ‘Gorky Park’. Renko was a young officer on the way up in ‘Gorky Park’, in ‘Three Stations’ he is on the way down. Technically, Renko has been suspended from the prosecutor’s office and is about to be forced out by superiors uncomfortable with the way in which he continues to inconveniently solve cases and bring the guilty to account.
The novel opens with Maya, a teenage mother, travelling to Moscow by train. Maya is fleeing from the past and is looking for a better life for her and her baby. Maya is rescued from a soldier by an older woman – but then awakens in the Three Stations train station at the Komsomol Square deprived of both her daughter and her possessions. Zhenya, the fifteen year old orphan previously rescued by Renko (‘Wolves Eat Dogs’), tries to help her.
At the same time, Renko is helping Victor Orlov investigate a suspicious death in a derelict trailer in another area of Three Stations. It seems that the dead woman is a prostitute and most likely dead of a drug overdose. This, for his superiors, is enough to rule out homicide. Renko does not agree and his subsequent investigations, even after he is fired, reveal a complex case.
I read this novel in one sitting, caught up in Smith’s vivid and gritty description of a corrupt and dysfunctional Moscow. The dual storylines: Renko trying to solve a murder; and Zhenya and Maya searching for baby Katya showcase the contrasts in a Moscow where gangs of homeless children co-exist together with the corruptly wealthy who can buy anything – including children - for a price.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith