The word “pattern” might lead one to think that the novel is formulaic or boring. Renko, battered and mostly dead, manages to work out a nearly impossible mystery. Unknown agents repeatedly try to kill Renko. Renko asks a lot of questions that no one wants him to ask, some of which uncover more layers of treachery and crime. Polar Star-the book, not the ship, this time-follows what I’m starting to see as the pattern of a Renko investigation. Captain Marchuck assigns Renko to work with the Polar Star‘s political officer to question the crew, conduct an autopsy, and draft a report for the police in Vladivostok. Really, it’s just amazingly bad luck that the ships trawling net scooped Zina back up out of the sea. Not when someone clearly stabbed her in the side to make sure she wouldn’t sink. Renko has clearly learned little from his experience on the wrong side of Soviet “justice.” While he is reluctant to investigate, Renko just can’t bring himself to pass off Zina Patiashvili’s death as an accident or a suicide. His plan might have worked if a female crewmember hadn’t been murdered and the ship’s captain hadn’t found out about Renko’s experience as an investigator. Renko keeps his head down and cuts up fish. He’s run as far east as he can to get away from the KGB and the men who want to put him back in the hospital or a prison.

When we finally catch up to him, Renko is working on the “slime line” on a factory ship. After Arkady Renko’s last case ( Gorky Park) ended in a Phyrric victory, he was interned in a Soviet hospital and diagnosed with “ sluggish schizophrenia.” (The theory behind this diagnosis was that anyone who acted against the state was clearly insane.) Martin Cruz Smith’s novel Polar Star begins a few years after Renko’s ignoble dismissal from the Moscow militia.

Polar star by martin cruz smith