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Loading... The Siberian dilemma (original 2019; edition 2019)by Martin Cruz SmithThe Siberian dilemma is if you fall in the water, what should you do? If you climb out you will die within 30 seconds because of the cold and if you stay in the water you will die in 5 minutes because of the cold. What to do? Well, the answer is do something. You will die anyway and the doing may well lead to unseen events that may mean you don't die. So climb out of the water. Well in Arkady Renko's world doing something always leads to unseen events. In The Siberian Dilemma, Renko goes searching for his girlfriend who is in Siberia following Mikhail Kutsenov around in order to write an article for the newspaper. She has been gone for a month and hasn't returned when she said she would. This desire to visit Siberia is then tainted with work when he has to pick up a prisoner and deliver him to a prison, also in Siberia. When he gets there, strange goings on at the oilfield, a couple of murders and being shot at all mean that he starts to investigate what is going on. In order to help him out, he meets Bolot who calls himself a factotum, someone who does all kinds of work, to help him out. Things get messy and Bolot who knows how to survive in the cold, who is a shaman and who can get things when he needs them turns out to be essential. This is book nine in the Arkady Renko series and is a world away from book one which was a gritty, realistic look at life in Moscow with Renko as a flawed detective. Here we have bears, magic and love. It's not quite what the series started out as but I did enjoy it as a break from reading other books. These books are a comfort read for me, easy and quick and I will stay up late at night to finish them! Good Thriller but Padded with Blank Pages Review of the Simon & Schuster paperback edition (October 2020) of the Simon & Schuster hardcover original (November 2019) "Siberian dilemma?" Tatiana asked. To get the lede gripe out of the way first, this book has about 80 blank or non-text pages (adding up full blanks, 1/2 to 9/10th page blanks, pictures, maps, preamble) padding its length from about 200 pages of reading to its full page count of 288. If your veteran author (Cruz Smith, now in his late 70s) doesn't want to expand on the length, or the editor cuts it down, why artificially bump it up? I followed several of the early books of the Investigator Arkady Renko series after reading the first one, Gorky Park, when it appeared in 1981. Although the settings often varied wide afield from the Moscow beginnings, it did begin to stretch credibility that such an obstinate detective would survive under first the authoritarian Soviet Union, the chaos of its breakup and finally the kleptocracy of Putin. After recently re-reading the 40th Anniversary edition of Gorky Park, I was curious enough to want to read how Renko was managing in the present climate. Cruz Smith is still excellent in his location research. This latest (2019) investigation sends Renko to the Irkutsk region near Lake Baikal in Siberia. The initiating plot is an apparent assassination attempt on his boss from the Moscow Prosecutor's Office, with the Chechen suspect having fled to Siberia. Renko is also concerned that his lover Tatiana, an journalist, has not returned on an agreed date from her investigation of Russian oil oligarchs in the East. Cruz Smith adds an entertaining supporting cast into the mix, especially with a local Irkutsk "factotum" named Rinchin Bolot, of indigenous Buryat background, who attaches himself to Renko. The twists and betrayals are typical Cruz Smith, but the setting of the Siberian landscape, Lake Baikal, the threats of the freezing cold and wild bears and, of course, the greed of the kleptocracy are all well handled. Like Chekhov's gun, the hinted dilemma of the title is paid off. The obvious inspiration of the real life story of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in the character of fictional oligarch Mikhail Kuznetsov is obvious of course, even to the extent of both having written a book such as My Fellow Prisoners. The resulting fates are, of course, completely different. So overall I quite enjoyed it and appreciated its attention to real-life details and inspirations. It was just the artificial page padding of the publisher that was an annoying distraction. Other Reviews Review in Asian Review of Books by Peter Gordon, December 13, 2019. Trivia and Links [Mild Spoiler] In a continuing series of misadventures by Arkady Renko, a Moscow investigator, the story takes us to Irkutsk in the Siberian plains. Corruption and political machinations dog Renko's investigation as well as his search for Tatiania, his journalist girlfriend. While the Siberian wilderness is always a background to the narrative, I would guess Martin Cruz Smith has not experienced enough of such a climate or bear hunting and driving on frozen lakes to really convey a genuine feel for the setting. The author provided a convoluted plot, with some sneaky twists, but largely, Renko is more of a puppet responding to unclear schemes behind his back. The action falls into a series of fits and starts, with interludes that seem disconnected. However, there are enough good pieces to make this worth reading ~ if you've enjoyed other Renko novels. Not up to the standard of Gorky Park or Red Square, for example, but Bolot, the 'factotum', is excellently drawn and brings the best of the story into an enjoyable read. It seems amazing to me that it is nearly forty years since the publication of Gorky Park, which introduced the cynical Moscow investigator Arkady Renko. Martin Cruz Smith had already published several other novels, bit it is for the Renko books that he seems to be best known. I loved Gorky Park. Apart from anything else, I think it was the first modern novel that I had read which was set in what was then the Soviet Union, which lent a certain novelty value. I have been rather ambivalent about the other novels in the series, and probably would not have bothered to read this one if it hadn’t been given to me as a present. The Russia of this novel is very different from that on Gorky Park, but the corruption and cynicism of the authoritarian figures looming over the story are much the same. Renko is despatched by his surly boss to Irkutsk, in Siberia, where he is to bring back a suspect who had been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder (the intended victim being Renkos’ boss himself). This mission is almost providential as Renko’s current partner, investigative journalist Tatiana Petrovna is also in Irkutsk, where she is following two oil-rich oligarchs, one of whom might be mounting a political campaign with a view to ousting the current President. Tatiana’s editor in Moscow had already alerted Renko to his concerns about her, as she seems to have slipped out of view, and hasn’t made any contact for several days. As usual, Renko finds himself in a situation where nothing is as it seems, and he grapples with two particularly complex mysteries that seem to be closely related to each other. Unfortunately, I fear that my sparse synopsis above is actually more exciting than the book ever manages to be. I feel that Renko might be due a well-earned retirement, to put him out of everyone’s misery. The ninth book in the Arkady Renko series has managed to avoid the false steps of many series: it does not clutter the book with continuing characters who each need a moment or a place in the plot. Yes, there are continuing characters, along with an extremely charming and useful new personage, but only Tatiana is important. Indeed, it's Tatiana, the journalist Arkady loves, who sets the plot in motion by disappearing somewhere in southern Siberia while working on an expose of Russian oligarchs. By the time Arkady catches up to her, she is in deep with an oligarch with a frenemy fellow oligarch. Is one or both of the oligarchs corrupt? Is there a dimension of their rivalry that goes beyond control of oil fields? Will someone start taking potshots at Arkady? Of course. The Siberian Dilemma, Martin Cruz Smith, author; Jeremy Bobb, narrator Arkady Renko is a special investigator in Moscow. When his girlfriend, investigative journalist Tatiana Petrovna fails to return home as promised, he travels to Siberia to search for her. He believes she is there working on a story about oligarchs and may be in trouble. Although he does find her there, his problems are just beginning. He is mauled by a bear and gravely injured, she is in a helicopter crash and barely escapes with her life, well known oligarchs are murdered to protect Vladimir Putin, and a corrupt a prosecutor threatens Zhenya, a 15 year old boy that Arkady cares for. The book is an easy read but it contains a lot of unnecessary dialogue about bees and bears. I thought the plot was thin with a lot of unnecessary extraneous tangents as Renko faces his own Siberian Dilemmas. In many ways a strange book. Supposedly 274 pages the type-face and the white space mean that it's probably more like 220 pages really. And it's sparsely written. No superflous descriptions, no fleshing out of characters beyond what they say and do, no excess prose beyond what's need for the storyline, and perhaps all the better for that. More a 3.75 than a 4, but a thoroughly enjoyable page-turner with perhaps a weak ending. I first discovered Arkady Renko back in the '80's through Martin Cruz-Smith's stand out debut Gorky Park - yes it was a movie too. Renko was a facinating charactere then and continues as such today. A moral detective in a corrupt society. Driven to do the only thing he can, investigate. Over the years Cruz-Smith has used the character to highlight and tell the story of a changing Russia. While some traditions have remained, much has changed. But not Renko, he is the same dogged detective clinging to principals and always out of sort with the people who run the government he serves.. Cruz-Smith's latest is an odd duck. It's a sparser novel then previous entries and his writing has become more streamlined. Almost like a Russian Ken Breun. No small compliment. The plot is relatively inconsequential, as it is the characters, along with Siberia itself, that drives the story. This is another novel masquerading as a crime book, when the subject is really life itself. Check it out, you won't be disappointed. “Reading was taken seriously, and learning was respected. One man beat his cellmate to death for tearing out the last fifty pages of ‘A Tale of Two Cities.” Now that’s my kind of prison! Arkady is back!!!! And Victor, his partner, who “was an excellent detective when he was sober.” Tatiana is missing and Arkady flies to Irkutsk, Siberia to look for her. And, while there, he also has to interrogate a man who shot at Prosecutor Zurin. Double the fun! I really liked Bolot, the factotum/shaman! And I just really enjoyed the book - the bears, the oil, and the oligarchs! Hoping for a #10!!! “Better to do something than nothing.” “The Siberian dilemma,” Arkady said. For new readers, those of you who haven't read any Arkady Renko books yet......Should I start this series? YES ! Should I read this book, #9 in the series? uh.....probably no. Read the very first, "Gorky Park". Then read the next 2-3. Be guided by critics' reviews. Somewhere in the middle, the series runs out of gas. Some books are very blah (this is not one of them), and others are only so-so. I gave this a "4"; it's probably a "3". It's very short. It starts at a zoo, and quick thinking police detective saves the day by bringing down an escaped bear with a nerves of steel, last second shot. Somehow we know we'll see more bears in subsequent chapters. And we do. And Tatiana is there, waiting rescue by guess who? "Siberian Dilemma" (SD) has timely issues including Putin, elections, etc. Tatiana is writing an article that will not be well received, and Arkady and his factotum go to her rescue in icy Siberia. Those pages were best with some very vivid and interesting descriptions of driving cars on frozen lakes, surviving a bear attack, surviving a helicopter crash and more. And now I have three mini un-spoilers for you: Putin wins the election, Arkady survives a modern day version of a SD, and nobody knows what a factotum is. Amusing but still Arkady-lite This is a slow read for a novel billed as a thriller. There are indeed a few thrilling moments in the narrative (a bear attack, a sniping murder, and a helicopter crash), but these are short-lived and related almost offhandedly with little suspense or buildup. Arkady goes to Siberia for a couple of nebulous reasons, including finding his girlfriend, the reporter Tatiana, and catching the culprit who shot at his boss on the "Love Lock" bridge in Moscow. Both of these mysteries are quickly solved with little fanfare or relationship to the main narrative. Thereafter, Arcady teams up with a couple of colorful characters and they roam around Siberia, but his motivations are never very clear. Smith's principle themes are Russian corruption related to Putin's hold on power against dissidents and the Oligarchs' control of Russia's fossil fuel resources. He handles these supremely important topics far too superficially to sustain much interest. In the final analysis, this is a disappointing addition to the Arcady Renko saga. My thanks to the Author publishers and NetGalley for providing a Kindle version of this book to read and honestly review. This is the ninth book in the excellent Arkady Renko series, but can easily be read as a standalone novel, and would be a simple introduction to the character who is right up there with my all time favourites. As with all the series the book is well written, atmospheric authentic and compelling. Our hero is sent to Siberia fortunately to investigate a seemingly open and shut case, which will allow him to also look for his missing reporter girlfriend but all is not as it seems, and soon Arkady is mixed up with billionaire oligarchs and brown bears literally fighting to save himself and those he loves. Gritty imaginative with superior characterization throughout. The only reason it's not rated five stars is there is not the usual twists and turns of mystery and plot i have come to expect. Recommended. Arkady is back Arkady Renko burst onto the scene in 1981 in "Gorky Park" and he has been a favorite of mine over the decades. After a gap of 6 years after "Tatiana" in 2013, Arkady is back following Tatiana on an assignment to wintertime Siberia where he dances with a bear and meets a shaman. This is less a mystery than a meditation on today's Russia, where life is cheap and power is everything. We meet all of the archetypes with Mr. Putin's shadow looming over everything. It's not a long book, or a heavy one, but for anyone with connections with Russia, it's quite a treat. I received a review copy of "The Siberian Dilemma" by Martin Cruz Smith from the publisher Simon & Schuster through NetGalley.com. |
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I loved Gorky Park. Apart from anything else, I think it was the first modern novel that I had read which was set in what was then the Soviet Union, which lent a certain novelty value. I have been rather ambivalent about the other novels in the series, and probably would not have bothered to read this one if it hadn’t been given to me as a present.
The Russia of this novel is very different from that on Gorky Park, but the corruption and cynicism of the authoritarian figures looming over the story are much the same. Renko is despatched by his surly boss to Irkutsk, in Siberia, where he is to bring back a suspect who had been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder (the intended victim being Renkos’ boss himself). This mission is almost providential as Renko’s current partner, investigative journalist Tatiana Petrovna is also in Irkutsk, where she is following two oil-rich oligarchs, one of whom might be mounting a political campaign with a view to ousting the current President. Tatiana’s editor in Moscow had already alerted Renko to his concerns about her, as she seems to have slipped out of view, and hasn’t made any contact for several days. As usual, Renko finds himself in a situation where nothing is as it seems, and he grapples with two particularly complex mysteries that seem to be closely related to each other.
Unfortunately, I fear that my sparse synopsis above is actually more exciting than the book ever manages to be. I feel that Renko might be due a well-earned retirement, to put him out of everyone’s misery. ( )