Three Stations: An Arkady Renko Novel (Volume 7) - Couverture souple

Detective Arkady Renko is frustrated. His prosecutor has entirely stopped giving him cases in order to avoid Renko's tendency for letting his investigations cross the boundaries of the law. He's recently turned fifty and is wondering how he wound up middle-aged. His partner is still a drunk, and he still can't get a grasp on Zhenya, the 15-year-old chess prodigy he sometimes shelters and attempts to care for.

But he has once again stumbled on a couple of unusual cases. A woman, assumed to be a prostitute, is found dead in a dilapidated trailer by the train station. However, there's not a single scratch on her body, the cause of death is completely invisible, and her clothing and grooming suggest she's not your average $5 hooker. And what's more, there seems to be evidence that the police themselves were her pimps.

At the same time, an ex-junkie teenage mother wakes up in the Moscow train station in the sleeper car of her train to find that her 3-month-old baby has been stolen. Zhenya happens upon her, panicking and running from the police. He feels compelled to help her, but she refuses to involve the authorities and will reveal absolutely no information about herself or her baby to anybody. Naturally, Zhenya calls his good friend, Arkady.

Once again, Martin Cruz Smith has written a thrilling, gruesome, complex novel in a style all his own. He continues to cross genres effortlessly, weaving his literary, compelling prose throughout a true page-turning plot. Incredibly
dark, thoughtful, political, terrifying, and witty all at once, Smith's new novel will have longtime Renko readers captivated as ever and is sure to add to the growing fanbase.

“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.”

—Janet Maslin, New York Times