Polar Star: A Novel (Arkady Renko Series Book 2)

Martin Cruz Smith says he did not plan on writing a sequel to the popular Gorky Park released in 1981. Only after eight years did he change his mind and decide to write Polar Star bringing back Arkady Renko, one of the more sympathetic characters in modern crime fiction. Gorky Park ended with Renko beating an American millionaire's plot to steal a breeding population of Russian sables and end the USSR's hold on that corner of the international fur market. He was successful, but in the process he helped his lover defect losing her and taking considerable physical and emotional damage while upsetting the powers that be. Returning voluntarily from the United States to the USSR must have mystified many Russians. Remember this was a time when people were risking their lives to defect, every Soviet trade delegation, visiting ballet production, what have you had its KGB minders to prevent any such thing from happening, and then Arkady Renko comes back of his own free will. It was not enough to save him and as Polar Star opens, Renko has been on the run from the KGB working his way across Siberia and finally ending up on a factory fishing ship engaged in a joint venture with an American fishing fleet operating in the Bering Sea just off the Aleutian islands. His job is working the slime line, gutting and cleaning a seemingly endless stream of fish in the damp cold. A mysterious murder forces the ship's captain to put the only person on board that is qualified to conduct an investigation back on the job. From this seemingly unpromising start Smith has fashioned a honey of a novel. His writing skills make Renko, the ship's company, the Bering Sea and the quandary of human existence come alive in our hands. For me Gorky Park was a satisfying read but frequent vague and confusing passages kept it from being as outstanding as it could have been. No such complaints about Polar Star. In the eight years since Gorky Park's release Smith's writing chops have become significantly more smooth, nuanced and mature delivering an invigorating read with Polar Star.

Polar Star by Martin Cruz Smith My rating: 4 of 5 stars I originally read Martin Cruz Smith's Polar Star when it first came out in 1989, having already read his first Arkady Renko book, Gorky Park. I remembered it as a fine read, with the type of sardonic protagonist I enjoy. I decided to read it again because one of my current works in progress is set above the Arctic Circle, and I wanted to see how Smith handled the Arctic as a location. Having just completed Polar Star again, I determined it is still a fine read, with the type of sardonic protagonist I enjoy.At the end of Gorky Park, Renko lost his job as a Moscow police investigator. After escaping the clutches of the KBG, he spent the ensuing years in a variety of menial jobs, keeping a low profile, until he ends up gutting fish on the "slime line" of the Polar Star, a Soviet factory ship. The USSR is going through its period of Perestroika, or restructuring. The Polar Star is part of a joint Soviet-U.S. venture in which American trawlers catch the fish and the Polar Star processes them.The body of Zina, a young, female Polar Star crew member, is hauled aboard the Soviet ship in a fish net. Knowing Renko's past employment as an investigator, the Polar Star's captain, Marchuck, orders the fish gutter to determine Zina's cause of death. Was it an accident or suicide? Renko reluctantly agrees, despite knowing Zina's body shows obvious signs of murder, the one cause of death no one wants to consider.Renko's search for suspects is complicated by the fact the beautiful Zina has slept with nearly every man aboard the Polar Star, including Marchuk. More complications arise when one of the suspects, a fisherman named Karp, is a vengeful former convict put in prison years before by Renko. When Renko's search for facts leads him to the bowels of the ship, he discovers secrets about the Polar Star he was never meant to know.Smith's Renko books remind me in many ways of Phillip Kerr's Bernie Gunther books. Like Gunther, Renko grows weary as he watches history--in this case, the collapse of the Soviet Union--unfold through the lens of his investigative efforts. Smith does an excellent job of creating the environment of a factory ship at sea, the result of doing extensive on-scene research aboard a real factory ship. His characters are as realistic and tough as the ship itself. Re-reading Polar Star made me regret not having continued with the subsequent books in the Renko series, a mistake I do not intend to make again.

I won't pretend to understand the workings of the 1980's Soviet Union and why former Chief Investigator Arkady Renko from the Moscow Prosecutor's Office is on the run following "Gorky Park", but he is and he's hiding out amongst the manual workers on the fish gutting 'slime line' on the Polar Star, a Siberian factory ship somewhere in the Behring Sea; and what a wonderful setting the Polar Star and the Behring Sea make for this second book in Martin Cruz Smith's Renko series.Shorter and thankfully less complex than "Gorky Park", although not without a huge cast of characters and an intricate plot involving murder, smuggling, corruption, espionage and counter-espionage "Polar Star" sees Renko being summoned by the ship's captain from the slime line to investigate the mysterious death of a crew member [and that's where I'll stop with the plot, you can read more, and spoilers, elsewhere].But what makes this so goo is that Cruz packs the book with detail of the mundane lives of the oddball crew, each of whom has his or her own secrets and lies that Renko must uncover to solve the case; and it's all set against the wonderfully atmospheric backdrop of the claustrophobic Polar Star and the empty loneliness of the cold Behring Sea; it's so good you can hear the sea and smell the fish on every page.So highly recommended, and you don't need to have read or understood "Gorky Park" [note the understood] to read and enjoy "Polar Star", it works well as a standalone read and is IMO a better book.

Pole star is one of the earlier Andy Renko books though I've only just got around to reading it.Renko has left Moscow following his escape from prison where he was tortured because of a previous investigation which didn't go down too well with the Government. In order to disappear until things settle down he joins a Soviet factory ship, the Polar Star, trawling the arctic and so leaves behind his life as a policeman.It's a brutal life aboard the ship and not long before a crew member disappears, presumed to have fallen overboard but Renko smells something off, and its not just the fish.As the only expert in criminal investigation onboard, Renko soon finds himself pressured into discovering what happened. Set in bleak surroundings, Polar Star is strangely compelling and absorbing.

'Chilling' is how I would describe this story, from the atmospheric setting of the icy waters of the Bering Sea, the claustrophobic conditions on board the Polar Star, a Soviet fish processing factory ship and the cast of totally authentic characters, many of whom you would be very reluctant to engage with!Polar Star is quite a long novel (circa 475 pages) but it doesn't seem like it. It has plenty of page turning action scenes as well as a gripping plot that finds Arkady Renko, now working on 'the slime line' gutting fish in the bowls of the Polar Star being dragged into an investigation of the possible suicide of a young woman who had been brought aboard the ship entangled in its nets. Needless to say, complications arise in the course of his investigation.So if you like gritty, action-packed, page-turning crime thrillers then I highly recommend you take a look at this book. In my opinion it is a far better story than Gorky Park (the first novel in the crime series featuring Arkady Renko). Furthermore, one can read Polar Star as a 'standalone' novel as you get plenty of background insights into Renko's past life to understand why he is now working on a Soviet factory ship and his reluctance to get involved in any possible criminal investigation. I am now looking forward to reading Red Star, the next novel that features Arkady Renko, but I can only hope my expectations have not been raised too high based on this really outstanding thriller.

I have no idea how MCS manages to research these difficult subjects but he does it so well. I had no prior knowledge of this Russian/American fishing arrangement so it was fascinating to me.The enigmatic Renko is brilliantly persistent in this murder mystery in the frozen North aboard the Russian Polar Star factory ship supplied by American trawlers. One of my favourites from this amazing author, the characters are exceptional, the landscape suitably inhospitable as are many of the crew and the plot is as deep and as hazardous as the ocean. Wonderful stuff.

Twenty years ago I read Gorky Park and loved it. Since then I've periodically thought that I must read Polar Star, Martin Cruz Smith's follow-up to his seminal Arkady Renko thriller.Well, now that I have a Kindle, I recently downloaded it. I'm glad I did. It’s very well written, highly atmospheric and tightly plotted and Renko is as deadpan, cynical, funny, compassionate and clever as I remembered. Do yourself a favour and get hold of it. You won’t regret it.I'm now halfway through Red Square, the third book in the series and enjoying that immensely too. I intend to read the lot.