Gorky Park

Propaganda, Murder and a Glimpse Behind the Iron Curtain

Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith was one of seven novels nominated by the C.W.A. for its Dagger of Daggers or “best of the best” award.

A standard police procedural with government coverups, but set in 1970s Moscow. The depiction of Soviet otherworldliness makes the book deeply compelling.

Synopsis

An officer of the People’s Militia stumbles across three bodies in Gorky Park, right in the centre of Moscow. Chief investigator Arkady Renko is called upon to discover who murdered them and why. It soon becomes clear that this isn’t an ordinary case of a drunk Russian exacting his revenge on a wayward partner or neighbour. The murderer shot the victims in the chest and again in their mouths to destroy their dental records. He then snipped off their fingerprints and removed the skin from their faces to destroy their identities. If that isn’t enough, Renko discovers that one of the dead men isn’t a Russian but a European or American citizen. The murder is not a crime for the People’s Militia to investigate but one for the political police, the K.G.B.

Yet the more suspicious the case becomes, the less the K.G.B. want to take it on, and the more convinced Arkady Renko becomes that someone is setting him up to take a fall.

Review

Gorky Park is an epic crime novel. Whatever you want, it has it; a homicidal millionaire, a dwarf forensic scientist, a political coverup, love, betrayal, action across two continents involving five police agencies and a taut murder mystery. At the story’s heart is a good man who has been dealt a poor hand trying to do the right thing.

Written in the 1970s and published in 1981 at the height of the Cold War, Gorky Park became an instant hit in the U.S.A. It stayed in the top two of The New York Times bestseller list for over three months. The British Crime Writers Association awarded it their highest honour, the gold dagger and Time magazine declared it the “thriller of the 80s”.

The novel’s beauty is that it provided glimpses into Leonid Brezhnev’s Russia that few of its readers would ever see. Did you know that the Soviet revolutionaries claimed to have eliminated prostitution? Therefore prostitution couldn’t be a crime. Instead, the authorities punished working girls for spreading venereal diseases or performing depraved acts. Likewise, lorry drivers claimed they had been diverted from their route, fiddled with their odometers, and siphoned diesel out of their tanks. They would then sell it on the black market to boost their pay.

Smith only spent a couple of weeks in the USSR in the 1970s researching his book, and the authorities refused him re-entry. He had to quiz the Russian immigrant population in New York to ground his novel with authentic details. I have no idea what life was like in the USSR in the 1970s, though Smith’s description of people’s behaviours chimes true. The police fiddle their crime figures whilst the political elite eat caviar on ice in underground steam baths. It is hard to believe Smith made it all up.

Martin Cruz Smith’s Gorky Park is intelligent writing. Smith constructs a trail of clues and discoveries that uncover a devious crime, all set against a perfectly observed backdrop.

The story isn’t perfect; it has a slam-bang ending, and the romance is unconvincing, but the stage is impeccably set. If you fancy a manhunt through a world that everybody has heard of, but few have visited, this is just the book.

Excerpt

All nights should be so dark, all winters so warm, all headlights so dazzling.

The van jacked, stalled and quit on a drift, and the homicide team got out, militia officers cut from a pattern of short arms and low brows, wrapped in sheepskin greatcoats. The one not in uniform was a lean, pale man, the chief investigator. He listened sympathetically to the tale of the officer who had found the bodies in the snow: the man had only strayed so far from the park footpath in the middle of the night to relieve himself, then he saw them, himself half undone, as it were, and just about froze, too. The team followed the beam of the van’s spotlight.

The investigator suspected the poor dead bastards were just a vodka troika that had cheerily frozen to death. Vodka was liquid taxation, and the price was always rising. It was accepted that three was the lucky number on a bottle in terms of economic prudence and desired effect. It was a perfect example of primitive communism.

Lights appeared from the opposite side of the clearing, shadow trees sweeping the snow until two black Volgas appeared. A squad of KGB agents in plainclothes were led from the cars by a squat, vigorous major called Pribluda. Together, militia and KGB stamped their feet for warmth, exhaling drafts of steam. Ice crystals sparkled on caps and collars.

The militia – the police arm of the MVD – directed traffic, chased drunks and picked up everyday corpses. The Committee for State Security – the KGB – was charged with grander, subtler responsibilities, combating foreign and domestic intriguers, smugglers, malcontents, and while the agents had uniforms, they preferred anonymous plainclothes. Major Pribluda was full of rough early-morning humor, pleased to reduce the professional animosity that strained cordial relations between the People’s Militia and the Committee for State Security, all smiles until he recognized the investigator.

Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith