Stalin's Ghost (2007)

Stalin's Ghost is a crime novel by Martin Cruz Smith set in Russia circa 2005. It is the sixth novel to feature Detective-Investigator Arkady Renko, published 26 years after the initial novel in the Renko series, Gorky Park.

Summary

The ghost of Joseph Stalin has been seen stalking the stations of the Moscow Metro. Renko, perpetually in hot water with his superiors, is assigned to the case with heavy hints to quash it. Instead, he discovers a peculiar connection to a string of murders and a group of Chechen War veterans.

Plot

Arkady Renko is trying to adjust to his new life as a family man with a woman who is not his wife and a boy who is not his son. The prodigal Zhenya is constantly running off on his own for days, sometimes in the company of street children, in the depths of the Moscow winter. Arkady also senses things are starting to sour between him and Dr. Eva Kazka. He and his partner Victor Orlov are investigating claims that someone within the prosecutor's office is committing murder for hire and then covering it up. That is until Prosecutor Zurin calls Arkady off to more unearthly matters: the ghost of Joseph Stalin is being sighted on the Moscow Metro. Knowing all too well that Zurin is giving this case to him as a punishment, Arkady attends to the task of handling it without enthusiasm. Meanwhile, his suspicions begin to be directed towards two fellow detectives: Nikolai Isakov and Marat Urman - both OMON veterans of the Second Chechen War from the town of Tver. Intruding into one of their investigations, he finds evidence that the detectives themselves killed the man in question, and later also his wife while claiming she "swallowed her tongue" in prison. After further incidents on the Metro, Zurin assigns Arkady to conduct an 'unofficial' investigation, his cover being inquiry into supposed death threats directed at Platonov - a paranoid old communist chess grandmaster.

Attending another Stalin sighting, it turns out that the event is being staged to promote a new political party called the Russian Patriots (reminiscent of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia), whose purpose is to divert opposition votes. After physically disrupting the media spectacle, Renko smiles at the thought of Zurin's reactions to his chief investigator crossing with the political elite. The source of the strain between Arkady and Eva is revealed to be Isakov, whom Eva had known from her time as a medic during the Chechen war. To confound matters, Arkady soon discovers that Isakov is also the primary candidate for the Russian Patriots and will receive judicial immunity as a Russian Senator if elected. Out of both professional and personal concerns, Arkady starts to gather more information on Isakov and Urman. Isakov is known as a war hero, having allegedly fought off much greater Chechen forces without losing a single man. A war reporter named Ginsberg gives Arkady "two truths from the same man": the official story and a far more tawdry rendition - the execution of unsuspecting business partners. Arkady notices that Isakov's fellow platoon members are also turning up dead, and that most of these untimely demises are being investigated by Isakov and Urman themselves. Even Ginsburg is murdered in an apparent face-off with a large snow plow.

Arkady attends a chess tournament with Platonov in hopes of luring Zhenya back. It works, and Zhenya once again portrays his amazing talent for the game. However, during his congratulatory match against Platonov, he suddenly concedes, citing imminent defeat, and flees. Heading outside, Arkady soon learns why: his long-lost father was watching the game. Demanding that he get half the prize money, Zhenya's father ends up shooting Arkady in the head with a defective war pistol. Arkady later learns that the man had enslaved his son in order to use his talents at chess to win money from travelers on the Trans-Siberian Railway. While Renko is recovering from the bullet wound, his overseer Zurin, having already vowed to get rid of him due to an altercation with a hired female killer later found to have connections to the Russian Patriots, is quick to try and shuffle Arkady off as health leave - any city of his choice. He expects Arkady to go down to the sunny coasts of the Black Sea and is amazed at his final choice: Tver. Knowing he is up to something, Zurin reluctantly agrees. Arkady is unsure of what he is after: Eva or Isakov. Either way, he begins to make his way around the town, planning his next move. Encountering Isakov, his American political consultants, and a melancholy Eva, he learns of "the diggers", who unearth Great Patriotic War dead either for profit or sentiment.

Isakov is seeking to utilize this as a propaganda event, his campaign going far better than planned, and so Arkady decides to go himself. Much to Arkady's dismay, Zhenya also makes his way down to Tver, enticed by tales of a legendary sea monster in a nearby lake. With the press flooding in, the main excavation begins. Seeking to make a big show of it, the diggers claim to have triumphantly dug up a mass grave of Russians massacred by the Germans. The circus atmosphere fades, however, when the on-site female Polish pathologist proclaims that the grave is actually Poles killed by the Russians. His name now in disrepute, Isakov's consultants quickly back out. Isakov himself, already uncomfortable with the tone of the campaign, departs. Urman, however, refuses to quit, and he goes out in search of some real Russian victims. Zhenya, having been befriended by Isakov, follows him - causing Arkady to run after them. Arkady and Urman exchange blows, with Arkady managing to gain an early advantage - only for Zhenya, his loyalties torn, to interfere with decidedly unfortunate results. Urman tosses both of them into the pit and begins to bury them alive. His careless shoveling, however, uncovers and detonates a buried land mine, killing Urman.