Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith
"Gorky Park" is a detective novel by Martin Cruz Smith set in 1970s Moscow during the Brezhnev era, a time characterized by heightened tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States. The story follows Arkady Renko, an astute homicide investigator, as he grapples with the perplexing murder of three individuals in Gorky Park, an unusual crime scene due to its public nature. The bodies are found frozen, their fingerprints destroyed, and faces skinned, complicating Arkady’s efforts to identify the victims. The narrative weaves in elements of political intrigue, as Arkady finds himself contending with the KGB, represented by the clumsy yet complex Major Pribluda.
As Arkady digs deeper, he uncovers connections to an American businessman, John Osborne, who is revealed to have nefarious motives tied to the smuggling of valuable sables. The story explores themes of personal and political conflict, as Arkady navigates his deteriorating marriage to Zoya and his growing attraction to Irina Asanova, a film student. The novel is acclaimed not only for its gripping plot but also for its rich depiction of Soviet life, offering readers an immersive experience into Moscow's streets and bureaucratic intricacies. Renko’s character, embodying a blend of resilience and alienation, serves as a unique lens through which to view the complexities of Soviet society and the moral dilemmas faced by individuals within it.
Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith
First published: 1981
Type of plot: Detective and mystery
Time of work: The 1970’s
Locale: Moscow and New York City
Principal Characters:
Arkady Renko , the chief homicide investigator for the Moscow police departmentMajor Pribluda , a KGB agentPasha Pavlovich , a plainclothes detectiveAndrei Iamskoy , a Moscow prosecutorZoya , Arkady’s wifeIrina Asanova , a film student implicated in a murder caseJohn Osborne , an American fur dealerWilliam Kirwill , a New York City policeman investigating the murder of his brother
The Novel
Gorky Park is set in the Moscow of the 1970’s, during the Leonid Brezhnev era, when the Soviet Union was still intact and viewed as a major threat to the United States. The main character, Arkady Renko, is a superb homicide investigator who is confronted with a baffling case: the murder of three people in Gorky Park—an unlikely setting for such a crime because it is so public and would seem to invite immediate detection. Yet the bodies are frozen, and even more strangely, their fingertips have been removed to destroy their fingerprints and their faces have been skinned, making physical identification extremely difficult. For Arkady, most cases are simple ones: one Russian kills another in a fit of passion or in a drunken spree. Truly interesting and intricate cases—usually involving politics and affairs of state—are the province of the Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti (KGB), the Soviet Union’s secret police.
Even before Arkady can investigate the scene of the crime thoroughly, he is interrupted by Major Pribluda, a KGB agent who handles the bodies roughly, thus destroying (Arkady fears) vital evidence. Yet Arkady’s feelings are mixed. Although he wants to do a careful investigation, he dislikes mixing in politics and would just as soon turn over the case to the oafish Pribluda if he is going to interfere with it.
Naturally, Arkady is curious about this bizarre crime and continues to investigate when he meets with no opposition from Pribluda. He is encouraged by his superior, the town prosecutor Andrei Iamskoy, who has enormous respect for Arkady’s talent and persistence. Ice skates left at the scene lead Arkady to their owner, Irina Asanova, a beautiful film student who refuses to cooperate with Arkady’s investigation but who intrigues him with her enigmatic behavior and independence.
Irina is a contrast to Arkady’s wife, Zoya, a beautiful but humorless Communist Party functionary who is having an affair with one of Arkady’s friends. Zoya is ambitious, and Arkady has neglected her for his work. She wants him to play the political game, for he is the son of a famous general, Josef Stalin’s most trusted military man, and she is chagrined that her husband has not made the most of this privileged position to ascend the Soviet ladder of power. Arkady, however, cannot abide the corruption that would require him to kowtow to bureaucrats.
Gradually, Arkady pieces together evidence about the identity of the three murder victims—one of them a friend of Irina. Working from blood samples, teeth, and various chemical analyses, Arkady discovers that one of the victims is an American. At the same time, he makes use of a scientist who has developed a special process for reconstructing faces. He will use one of his sculpted heads to get Irina to admit that it was her friend who was killed. When he is able to link a KGB informant to the murder, Arkady has his lieutenant, Pasha, accompany the man home to acquire additional evidence. Both men, though, are murdered, and the evidence disappears—probably because the KGB is involved, Arkady suspects; he believes it is Pribluda who has murdered Arkady’s detective and his informant.
In fact, as Arkady slowly realizes, it is an American businessman, John Osborne, who has been manipulating him and several other officials. Osborne is a well-connected fur dealer who has been visiting the Soviet Union since World War II. He is, Arkady finally deduces, the murderer—a man who kills for the sheer sport of it—but also a man who has decided to create his own sable market by smuggling several sables (worth more than gold) out of the country.
The novel concludes with Arkady’s final confrontation with Osborne—not in Moscow, but in New York, where he and Irina, assisted by New York detective William Kirwill, track Osborne to his den of sables.
The Characters
Like most mystery stories, Gorky Park is driven by an intricate plot. It is the detective’s search for the truth and his solution to the crime that create interest. Nevertheless, the novel contains many well-developed characters. Arkady is in the tradition of the stoical detective, a loner who has to figure things out for himself and is alienated from the establishment. At the same time, he is not a stock American or English character in Russian clothes. He is extraordinarily bright, but he realizes that he lacks some of the basic techniques for solving crimes that any New York City detective would have in his possession, primarily because his investigations have been relegated to routine matters. He is middle-aged, worried, and depressed over his failing marriage to Zoya. Though he eventually beds Irina, he does so with a sense of fatality, suspecting that they will not be able to stay together.
Irina is fiercely alive in her desire to leave the country. She detests Soviet life, which is why it takes her so long to discover that Osborne is not her benefactor but her enemy. For he has promised Irina and her friend that he will take them to the United States if they collaborate in his plan to smuggle the sables, and Irina clings to the illusion that her friend has escaped the country and has not become one of the murder victims in Gorky Park.
Andrei Iamskoy and John Osborne are the most devious and complex characters in the novel. Arkady eventually learns that they met in the war and that they share an insatiable greed. Iamskoy has posed as Arkady’s supporter, but his plan has been merely to keep an eye on Arkady, using his reports to gauge how close Arkady is to actually solving the crime. Arkady eventually has to kill Iamskoy in order to continue his pursuit of Osborne, the evil genius of the book, who delights in getting away with murder and with the sables, not only duping the Soviets but actually getting Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents in New York to abet his schemes by making them think that Arkady is a KGB agent.
Much less successful as a character is William Kirwill. He talks like a New York City detective, but his story about his brother, James Kirwill, who came to the Soviet Union to satisfy a missionary impulse, seems farfetched. Moreover, Kirwill’s story about his family—his mother and father were Irish American Communist sympathizers—works only as a weak explanation for Kirwill’s understanding of Soviet mores and the Russian language. Kirwill is a helping character, and Arkady badly needs his assistance, but Kirwill never achieves independence as a fictional creation. He is merely there to further the plot.
One of the most surprising characters is Major Pribluda. Arkady has misjudged him. He is a blundering KGB agent, but there is also a grudging sense of humanity in his character, which accounts for his refusal, at one point, to obey a direct order to kill Arkady. Pribluda is not evil, he is merely a servant of the state doing his job, and he is without the imagination to act any other way, except when his basic sense of decency is violated.
Critical Context
Gorky Park was hailed as a superb thriller on publication, and it quickly became a best-seller. Critics were impressed not merely by the style and presentation of action but also by the author’s astonishing knowledge of the Soviet Union. The novel gives the feel of traveling Moscow streets, of delving deeply into the government bureaucracy and everyday life. What it felt like to work in the country, to be a member of the Communist Party, to go to a party, spend a day at home—all kinds of activities are brought to life in an engaging tale of suspense.
Since the novel was published well before the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, Western readers also found it a novelty to be rooting for a Soviet hero. Even though Arkady is a misfit, he is a “comrade,” a member of Soviet society, and he remains Soviet even when he is transported to New York. He thinks only of returning after the crime is solved, for his identity has been formed in the Soviet Union; whatever his society’s faults, he must return home. This means abandoning Irina, whose dream has been to reach the United States. Arkady cannot imagine emigrating, no matter how much he loves her.
In his basic patriotism, Arkady resembles the detectives in American stories, who may be hypercritical and aloof, but who also stand for and reestablish the society’s basic values. The system may be corrupt, but the detective with integrity cleanses it, if only in some small part, by solving a crime.
Arkady has become a series character, making appearances in the subsequent novels Polar Star (1989) and Red Square (1992). Although the times change, the politics differ, Arkady’s weary yet resilient character remains basically the same. Like all detectives, he aims to restore order, to act as a symbol of justice, however flawed he and the system might be. His tenacity is life-affirming, no matter how disappointed he may become. He does not really expect to be happy, yet he endures.
Sources for Further Study
Christian Science Monitor. LXXIII, April 13, 1981, p. B8.
Hausladen, Gary. “Murder in Moscow.” Geographical Review 85 (January, 1995): 63-78. Examines Moscow-based murder mysteries of Martin Cruz Smith, Stuart Kaminsky, and William Holland for their effective use of description, dialogue, and symbolism to convey a sense of place and use of place as an indispensable key to commission, discovery, and resolution of crimes. Discusses Gorky Park, Polar Star, and Red Square.
Lekachman, Robert. “Gorky Park.” The Nation 232 (April 4, 1981): 406-407. Finds the solution to the mystery too pat and the novel’s ironies too symmetrical but notes that Smith is extraordinarily well-informed about police and security matters. Remarks that the depth of knowledge overrides other flaws, such as his weak treatment of women.
Library Journal. CVI, April 1, 1981, p. 818.
Martin, John P. “Staten Island in Literature, 1940-1990.” Community Review 12 (Fall, 1991-Spring, 1992): 20-26. Focuses on Staten Island in New York City as described in five literary works, including Gorky Park. Martin shows how the Staten Island setting influences the characterization of Arkady and highlights the themes of “personal turmoil over identity and freedom” and “the larger struggle between good and evil.”
The New York Review of Books. XXVIII, June 11, 1981, p. 23.
The New York Times Book Review. LXXXVI, April 5, 1981, p. 1.
Newsweek. XCVII, April 6, 1981, p. 100.
Saturday Review. VIII, April, 1981, p. 66.
Shevchenko, Arkady N. Breaking with Moscow. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985. A memoir by a Soviet diplomat, United Nations bureaucrat, and self-confessed spy for the United States. His account provides a remarkable insider’s view of Soviet society and Soviet-American relations that illuminates the issues and the historical context of Gorky Park. Like Irina Asanova, Shevchenko grew to hate the Soviet regime, and his desire to remain in America is comparable to hers.
Time. CXVII, March 30, 1981, p. 81.
Wilson Library Bulletin. LV, June, 1981, p. 774.