Three Stations

An Arkady Renko Novel

By: Martin Cruz Smith

Narrated by: Ron McLarty

Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

A passenger train hurtling through the night. An unwed teenage mother headed to Moscow to seek a new life. A cruel-hearted soldier looking furtively, forcibly, for sex. An infant disappearing without a trace.

So begins Martin Cruz Smith’s masterful Three Stations, a suspenseful, intricately constructed novel featuring Investigator Arkady Renko.

For the last three decades, beginning with the trailblazing Gorky Park, Renko (and Smith) have captivated readers with detective tales set in Russia. Renko is the ironic, brilliantly observant cop who finds solutions to heinous crimes when other lawmen refuse to even acknowledge that crimes have occurred. He uses his biting humor and intuitive leaps to fight not only wrongdoers but the corrupt state apparatus as well.

In Three Stations, Renko’s skills are put to their most severe test. Though he has been technically suspended from the prosecutor’s office for once again turning up unpleasant truths, he strives to solve a last case: the death of an elegant young woman whose body is found in a construction trailer on the perimeter of Moscow’s main rail hub. It looks like a simple drug overdose to everyone—except to Renko, whose examination of the crime scene turns up some inexplicable clues, most notably an invitation to Russia’s premier charity ball, the billionaires’ Nijinksy Fair.

Thus a sordid death becomes interwoven with the lifestyles of Moscow’s rich and famous, many of whom are clinging to their cash in the face of Putin’s crackdown on the very oligarchs who placed him in power. Renko uncovers a web of death, money, madness. and a kidnapping that threatens the woman he is coming to love and the lives of children he is desperate to protect. In Three Stations, Smith produces a complex and haunting vision of an emergent Russia’s secret underclass of street urchins, greedy thugs, and a bureaucracy still paralyzed by power and fear.

Solve another case with Arkady Renko.

©2010 Titanic Productions. All rights reserved. (P)2010 Simon & Schuster

Critic reviews

“[Smith] takes what in essence is a police procedural and elevates it to the level of absorbing fiction.” ( Los Angeles Times)

"A continuing adventure that in terms of popular fiction is surely a work of art.” ( Washington Post)

"The sustained success of Smith’s Renko books is based on much more than Renko. This author’s gift for tart, succinct description creates a poisonous political backdrop, one that makes his characters’ survival skills as important as any of their other attributes. . . [This is] one top-flight series, still sharply honed, none the worse for wear.” ( New York Times)

a real disappointment

This novel is not in the same league as earlier work. The plots are thrown together and although all is made well in the end, you feel that the author just wanted to finish it all in a hurry. The characters are also astonishingly poorly drawn, with no depth at all. Spend your money elsewhere,,,

Arkady Jumps The Shark

I am a long-time Arkady Renko fan and have always found the adventures easy escapism. You never have to think too hard with these novels, which is nice, but there's always enough intrigue and context to keep you engaged. And here, with Three Stations, there's...well...nothing to write home about. The characters and motivations - even Arkady's - are superficial to non-existent. The plot lines, really three intertwined minor plots thrown together, are uninteresting and unconvincing. Overall just dull. I kept waiting for something to happen. Then when "something" did happen it was just as uninteresting as when nothing was happening. It was like the adventures of Al Gore and Dan Qualye boozing it up in Russia, or a bad episode of Columbo. The narrator is fine, but he had little content to work with. I normally don't spend credits on short 7 hour listens, but figured it was worth it here to re-visit an old friend. Old friend never showed. Rest well Arkady. It was nice knowing you.

Great Book - Not-So-Great Reader

Unfortunately, this book in the Arkady Renko series by Martin Cruz Smith, doesn't hit the audible book mark. I was fortunate enough to have read this book, so when I bought it, I was looking forward to a great listen. Not so. Personally, I really didn't like the reader of the book. His flat delivery and slow cadence had me turning it off within 10 minutes. I jumped ahead to see if the reading got better, it did not.

I recommend you buy the book (and the entire, wonderful series). Skip the audio version-not worth the money or credit.

meh

I love Martin Cruz Smith's books, but this is not his best work. The reader was adequate but not the right reader for this text. if you'd like to experience a good Martin Cruz Smith book with an excellent reader then try polar Star read by Frank Muller.