Three Stations - Book Review

Martin Cruz Smith's Three Stations is his latest Arkady Renko novel and finishing it catches me up with the series. (Though I still think I need Red Square to be complete; I've no desire to go back that far in the series. Famous last words, though, so you never know.)

This one's as good as any of them. A remarkably fast read - well, that's because it's shorter by about 50 pages - involving another Russian landmark or location. (Three Stations is, well, three train stations located next to one another, where a mass of Russian humanity boils with their coming and going.) An intertwined storyline that, though not quite Dickensian, does involve street urchins and the tired trope of a serial killer. But plot isn't really important in Smith's Renko novels. It's the portrait of modern Russia that he creates of a tired, worn out country with a long, frequently dark past, trying desperately to keep up with the modern world and not quite making it. And the characters, of course. Always the characters.

Another great installment in this fine series.