The main protagonist is one Arkady Renko, a Chief Investigator in Moscow’s militia. The militia handle all police matters of an entirely internal nature. If any foreign national is involved, however, it becomes the business of the KGB.
Renko is an intelligent man – a little cold perhaps, analytical as one would expect of a police detective, sometimes on the taciturn side, but fundamentally honest and humanitarian in nature and possessed of an ironic sense of humour. He tolerates the prosecution of life under Soviet politics, but has no love for it. He’s not a party man and regards the KGB as a de facto enemy. So is he at least partially representative of an intelligent Russian’s attitude towards life in the Soviet Union?
It would be interesting to know, but it has to be remembered that the novel was written by an American during the height of the Cold War. Is Renko, therefore, more the merely imagined product of an intelligent American’s fantasy? Whatever the truth of the matter, I doubt Mr Putin would be a fan because it carries an uncomfortable echo of present circumstances.
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