Thrilling plot which I could not put down. Brilliant characters, and twists and turns. Highly recommend to other fans of this genre!!

This ninth novel in Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko series takes place mostly in Siberia where Arkady is sent to prosecute a Chechen charged with trying to assassinate Arkady's boss, Prosecutor Zurin. While he is there Arkady also tries to find his missing sometime lover, journalist Tatiana Petrovna. She had gone to Siberia several weeks before to interview oil rich oligarch Mikhail Kuznetsov, a presidential candidate hoping to oust Putin, making himself a target for the Kremlin to remove one way or another. Tatiana had left Arkady a message to indicate she'd be back three weeks ago but she wasn't on the train when he went to meet her and hadn't been in contact.

The first half of the novel mainly sets the scene for the action that culminates towards the end of the novel. There is political intrigue, allegations of sabotage, a sharpshooter firing at Arkady and a man wrongly framed for attempted murder. in his search for Tatiana Arkady meets Mikhail Kuznetsov, the presidential candidate who wants to make wide sweeping changes in Russia. Arkady also keeps coming across Boris Benz, another oil wealthy oligarch he met briefly in Moscow, and when Benz invites him on a bear hunt on the frozen Lake Baikal he accepts. The landscape around the lake is breath taking and bleakly beautiful but the isolation becomes dangerous when the bear hunt goes badly and Arkady and his companions must use all their survival skills to survive long enough to be found. The 'Siberian dilemma' is described as the decision you have to make after falling through the ice of a frozen lake to either try to climb out and freeze to death within a few seconds or not climb out and die of hypothermia within five minutes. In other words, is it better to sit back accept the inevitable or to try to do something about it, even if failure is almost certain. Arkady will have his own Siberian dilemma to face before the novel is finished.

Despite all the pressures on him and particularly Prosecutor Zurin's dislike of him, Cruz Smith has managed to keep Arkady Renko as an essentially just and honest man willing to fight for the underdog in a corrupt society. Set as it is in contemporary Russia, Cruz Smith also deals insightfully with many of the issues facing Russian society today including the way in which the environmental destruction caused by oil and gas exploration is ignored, and the way in which wealth from those natural resources leads to corruption and injustice as well as the control that the Kremlin has over political opponents and all facets of the everyday life of its people. Highly recommended for lovers of political thrillers.

‘Arkady was an Investigator of Special Cases, and if a bear running loose in the heart of Moscow was not a special case, he didn’t know what was.’

Arkady Renko is worried. His lover, journalist Tatiana Petrovna, has been on assignment for over a month, and doesn’t arrive home on her scheduled train from Irkutsk. Renko is convinced that something is wrong, but no-one else seems concerned. Could one (or more) of her numerous enemies have silenced her?

Renko’s boss Zurin wants him to go to Siberia to oversee the prosecution of a Chechen terrorist, who tried to kill the Moscow Prosecutor. Renko agrees: Zurin threatens harm to his stepson if Renko does not follow orders. He’s reluctant, until he learns that Tatiana might still be in Siberia doing a story on Mikhail Kuznetsov, the so-called ‘hermit billionaire’ who may run against Vladimir Putin at the next election. Kuznetsov, a wealthy oligarch, who has made his money in oil and is seen as a political dissident, is the first to pose any real threat to Vladimir Putin in over a decade. Could he be the perfect candidate to take on corruption in Russian politics?

It’s cold and dangerous in Siberia. Renko finds Tatiana, but can they survive?

I’ve been a fan of Arkady Renko since ‘Gorky Park’. This is the ninth book in the series, and I think that committed Renko fans will enjoy it. If you are new to this series, go back to ‘Gorky Park, where it all began.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster (Australia) for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Arkady is an investigator of special cases in Moscow who just seems to get into trouble no matter what. His girlfriend Tatiana is missing but no one seems to be worried as she is a journalist that goes off the grid but this time he knows that there is something wrong so when he is giving an assignment that will take him to Siberia he knows that he might be able to find Tatiana but will she be happy to see him? On the way there he meets Bolot someone that will save his life and get him out of Siberia in one piece. Arkady knows that he needs to find out more about the story that Tatiana is writing and about the man that everyone is talking about. Things don't turn out the way that he expected and a simple trip ends in two deaths and suspicion on who the killer could be. Can he get Tatiana out while there is still time or will she continue to be stubborn and want to finish her story? Will anything be the same again for them? A good read. Arkady is a man that never gives up even when the odds aren't in his favour. Would want him on my side in a fight I was lucky enough to receive a copy via Netgalley & the publishing house in exchange for my honest review.