Three Stations by Martin Cruz Smith

Family Redux

Three Stations by Martin Cruz Smith

“There are actual billionaires here tonight? That makes me feel less like a dog and more like a speck on the windshield.” (p. 83)

Ok, I admit it. I thoroughly enjoy the Arkady Renko series of novels, even though I don’t often read mystery novels. It wasn’t a surprise that after having recently read another installment I would gravitate inevitably to the newest novel in the series. These are guilty pleasure for lazy summer afternoons.

There isn’t anything particularly distinctive about this detective other than the setting. This character, as is the case with others of his type, are inevitably at odds with their superiors. They do not prosper economically, and they work at the margins, sympathetic to the plight of those who are often overlooked. Rather than being in need of redemption, they are instead the redeemers, and we always get the sense that the societies in which they find themselves, in this case, the post-Soviet New Russia of the Oligarchs, need these figures to recalibrate themselves morally.

The detective is involved in the judicial apparatus of his society, but what if this apparatus has been compromised? This is always the case with these hard-boiled detectives who operates as a weary observer and critic of their societies, and who takes cases that would otherwise be summarily dismissed. There is no exception to this rule in this novel, which is shorter than others and seems, unfortunately, to retread territory that has been covered before.

In this outing we have a detective who is confronted by the mystery of yet another unsolved murder. He, or rather, his partner Victor, since he is in the process of being mustered out of the detective force, encounters the corpse of a young woman in a trailer near the Three Stations district of Moscow. From the beginning there are questions about the nature of this death, and the way in which the corpse has been posed. It seems to be hardly the result of a suicide, and yet, there is considerable pressure to have the case catalogued as such, to bring it to conclusion. The investigative apparatus is compromised by other factors, in this case, the crusade of his immediate supervisor to marshal him out of the force and to use any convenient episode to do so.

There is also another parallel story line in which Zhenya, the adolescent and adopted son of Arkady, has encountered another young woman who was fleeing from enforcers, and who has lost her baby. This woman, by the name of Maya, was accosted by a team of kidnappers who accosted her on the train, and who have taken her baby. She is a small town girl from the provinces who is unfamiliar with the big city, and has no friends except for the chess genius who demonstrates thereby the influence of his adopted father Arkady. Zhenya also has a heart of gold, and seems to be following in the same footsteps.

These story lines will intersect at the very end, in a way that seems too implausible. Granted, chance plays a role in all such detective narratives, and the crucial clue may escape notice until the very end as we try to make sense of the puzzle, but in this case it was thoroughly unconvincing. In the meantime, we will have another excursion into territory that has been covered before, namely, the bewildering and predatory world of the New Russia, where millionaires abound, where the supposed ideals of the prior era have been thoroughly trampled into the ground, and where oligarchs such as Sacha Vuksberg, the casino billionaire who is in reality bankrupt, hold lavish events to continue with the time-honored Russian custom of appearing to be what they are not. The Potemkin villages are very much in evidence here once again, in this landscape of predatory capitalism that is not free but, as with everything else in Russia, is subservient to age old authoritarian impulses.

We will encounter an  interesting menagerie of characters, from the bullies and runaways that haunt urban Moscow to the eccentrics, the old photographers (Madame Furtseva, a romantic figure who jokes that she benefits from insomnia) and the young dancers and the thuggish criminals (there is an episode where a dwarf who was hired to play the role of Dopey tries to kill his employer) mix, and where we are made aware of a society that seems to be churning with energy as well as corruption. The detective wades through all of this, trying to pursue his investigation even when he has been dismissed from the force, battling adversity from all sides and forming the nucleus of integrity that is always at play in these novels.

This novel is panoptic and as such demonstrates a social vision that is reminiscent of the novels of the 19^th century. While we don’t have a detached narrator who describes this society and the distinct social classes, we venture nonetheless into different social spheres, from the realm of the child prostitutes out in the provinces who are sold from an early age to that of the millionaires who attend lavish events in an eternal need for self-promotion. The chasm between the two seems unbreachable except in a few instances, where we see how this form of rough capitalism leads to unsavory trafficking that takes several forms.

Dancers who are lucky enough to be able to join the Nijinsky group, one bankrolled by the bankrupt billionaire, are inevitably prostituted by compromising their ideals. They are accomplished dancers but they aren’t able to live up to their ideals, and in this instance, it leads to the unleashing of diverted energies that express themselves as pathologies. We also see groups of thugs at work on the streets, reproducing the hierarchies and mimicking the entrepreneurial energies of the new Russians, and thus, we see Zhenya, the adolescent, having to deal with the threat of the bully Yegor, who is an underworld figure in training. And, we see the older generations at a loss, unable to cope with these deranged energies and wishing earnestly to return to the certainties of the previous generation. (Is it ever any different with the older generations?)

In the end, we will see actions lead inevitably to a culmination that seems, perhaps, too frenetic. What I have always enjoyed about these novels are the insights they would provide into what seem to be timeless Russian values, and the play between modernity and traditionalism in this society. But I gained little of this sense here, and actions seem to be accelerated in accordance with the relentless dictates of a Hollywood Summer blockbuster. I would have appreciated more atmosphere, in other words, but this novel seemed somehow shorter and more compressed, and while the wit of the dialogue entertained me (it gave me a truer appreciation of how these characters have grown on me, especially as evident in the laconic wit of Arkady), it didn’t necessarily lead to a satisfying outcome.

We have more anecdotes about interesting historical figures, and these are used to shed light on contemporary society. As one character, the deranged dancer Sergei Borodin of the Nijinsky group, explains:

“Peter the Great had a museum of freaks, children with horns and hooves, the half formed and deformed. He sent out a decree that all such monsters in Russia be brought to him. It was called the ‘Monster Decree’. It’s happening again, only this time money rules. Monsters are gathering in Moscow. Whores, millionaires, like dung beetles rolling dollar bills. God is dog, Dog is shit, I am God.” (p. 218)

All in the midst of confessing a crime that the chief prosecutor, Arkady’s superior, refuses perversely to recognize, wishing as he does to punish his subordinate rather than fulfill the dictates of the police apparatus. It will take Arkady’s cleverness to sideline this perversity and the trap in which he finds himself, in order to satisfy the dictates of what his integrity and sense of duty demand. He is selfless, in other words, when everyone else has been compromised.

And thus, this new thriller comes to an end, with Arkady being temporarily redeemed. That he will be marginalized again is a given. He is not made for being incorporated into this or any society. He labors in the background, fulfilling his duty in a stoic way, and this is also an appealing part of this character. The novel, however, is less than appealing because of the pacing and because of the lack of psychological depth, and because we get the feeling we have been here before. I hate to admit it, but I have the sense that, however familiar I feel this character to be, he has run his course.



Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2013
Copyrights ORomero 2013