Chief Homicide Investigator Arkady Renko's investigation of three mutilated bodies reaches to the highest levels of the Communist hierarchy.

Investigator Arkady Renko, the pariah of the Moscow prosecutor's office, has been assigned the thankless job of investigating a new phenomenon: late-night subway riders report seeing the ghost of Joseph Stalin on the platform of the Chistye Prudy Metro station. The illusion seems part political hocus-pocus and also part wishful thinking, for among many Russians Stalin is again popular; the bloody dictator can boast a two-to-one approval rating. Decidedly...

"In Tatiana, Martin Cruz Smith, 'the master of the international thriller' (The New York Times) creates the most compelling heroine of his career and the most realistic, damning portrait of modern Russia in contemporary literature. One of the iconic investigators of contemporary fiction, Arkady Renko -- cynnical, analytical, and quietly subversive -- has survived the cultural journey from the Soviet Union to the New Russia, only to find the nation...

"Detective Arkaday Renko risks his life when he heads to Ukraine shortly before the Russian invasion to find an anti-Putin activist who has mysteriously disappeared. It's June 2021, and Arkady knows that Russia is preparing to invade and subsequently annex Ukraine as it did Crimea in 2014. He is, however, preoccupied with other grievances. His longtime lover, Tatiana Petrovna, has deserted him for her work as an investigative reporter. His corrupt...

Struggling with a prosecutor's refusal to give him work, investigator Arkady Renko of Moscow finds his efforts to watch out for a teen chess prodigy challenged by a case involving a kidnapped baby, a dead prostitute, and police corruption.