A review by photokat
Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith

2.0

I had been really looking forward to reading this book, and I hate to say this but the book fell short of my expectations. Perhaps the expectations were too high? Certainly not. A whodunit/thriller set in Soviet era Russia (cuz it was written that long ago)… so many chances for intrigue and espionage! There were many chances for that but they all felt overwritten, too long, overly detailed and then sometimes not detailed enough. Entire scenes and sequences felt like they could’ve been shortened or eliminated altogether to the point where I was rooting for someone to just murder someone so we could be done with it. In the end none of the characters are likeable, not that they need to be, and the storyline could’ve been helped by some tighter editing. Would I recommend this to someone? If it was on a shelf at an inn and someone needed a book to read to pass the time? Yes, but only if there weren’t any better whodunit options on the shelf.