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''Tatiana'' is a 2013
crime novel Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, crime novel, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives or fiction that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a profession ...
by
Martin Cruz Smith Martin Cruz Smith, born Martin William Smith (November 3, 1942), is an American writer of mystery and suspense fiction, mostly in an international or historical setting. He is best known for his series featuring Russian investigator Arkady Renko ...
set in
Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
. It is the eighth novel to feature Detective-Investigator Arkady Renko, published 32 years after the initial novel of the ''Arkady Renko'' series, '' Gorky Park''.Steinhauer, Olen, ''The New York Times'' (August 12, 2010)
Moscow Express
/ref>


Plot

One of the iconic investigators of contemporary fiction, Arkady Renko —cynical, analytical, and quietly subversive— has survived the cultural journey from the Soviet Union to the New Russia, only to find the nation as obsessed with secrecy and brutality as was the old Communist regime. In ''Tatiana'', the melancholy hero finds himself on the trail of a mystery as complex and dangerous as modern Russia herself. The fearless investigative reporter Tatiana Petrovna falls to her death from a sixth-story window in Moscow the same week that a mob billionaire, Grisha Grigorenko, is shot and buried with the trappings afforded minor royalty. No one makes the connection, but Arkady is transfixed by the tapes he discovers of Tatiana's voice, as she describes horrific crimes concealed by official cover stories. The trail leads to
Kaliningrad Kaliningrad,. known as Königsberg; ; . until 1946, is the largest city and administrative centre of Kaliningrad Oblast, an Enclave and exclave, exclave of Russia between Lithuania and Poland ( west of the bulk of Russia), located on the Prego ...
, a Cold War " secret city" and home of the Baltic Fleet, separated by hundreds of miles from the rest of Russia. Arkady delves into Tatiana's past and a surreal world of wandering dunes and amber mines. His only link is a notebook written in the personal code of a translator whose body is found in the dunes. Arkady's only hope of decoding the symbols lies in Zhenya, a gifted teenage chess hustler. The story was inspired by the murder of Russian journalist
Anna Politkovskaya Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya (; 30 August 1958 – 7 October 2006) was a Russians, Russian investigative journalist who reported on political and social events in Russia, in particular, the Second Chechen War (1999–2005). It was her repor ...
Schillinger, Liesl, ''The New York Times'' (November 17, 2013)
Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery
/ref> in 2006.


References


External links


Martin Cruz Smith official site
2013 American novels Arkady Renko Novels by Martin Cruz Smith Novels set in Moscow Simon & Schuster books Macmillan Publishers books {{2010s-crime-novel-stub