NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • Arkady Renko’s triumphant return to Moscow quickly turns into a waking nightmare in this “crackling suspense thriller” ( The Boston Globe ) from the author of Gorky Park. “What ultimately sets the Renko books apart is the careful writing, and, more importantly, the knowledge of the human heart that is carried through it, through them, first to last.”— Chicago Tribune Back from exile in the hellish reaches of the Soviet Union, homicide investigator Arkady Renko discovers that his country, his Moscow, even his job, are nearly dead. But his enemies are very much alive, and foremost among them are the powerful black-market crime lords of the Russian mafia. Hounded by this terrifying new underworld, chased by the ruthless minions of the newly rich and powerful, and tempted by his great love, defector Irina Asanova, Arkady can only hope desperately for escape. But fate has something else in store. “Gripping . . . Vividly capture[s] the essence of the new Russia . . . The climax of Red Square takes place in Moscow during the hard-line coup attempt of August 1991. The texture of that remarkable time is captured quite adeptly: The moment is simultaneously tense and festive, bizarre and ordinary, grave and absurd. It’s Mr. Smith at his best.” — The Wall Street Journal “A crackling suspense thriller.” — The Boston Globe “Fascinating . . . powerful.” — The Philadelphia Inquirer “Absorbing.” — The New York Times “Extraordinary.” — Time “Welcome home, Arkady Renko. The hero of Gorky Park and Polar Star returns to Moscow in a thriller so dense with observation and atmosphere, it rivals John le Carré. . . . Renko [is] the most touching character to grace the pages of a novel since The Spy Who Came in from the Cold .” — Cosmopolitan Martin Cruz Smith ’s novels include Gorky Park , Stallion Gate , Polar Star , Stalin’s Ghost , Rose , December 6 , Tatiana, Havana Bay, Red Square, and The Girl from Venice . He is a two-time winner of the Hammett Prize, a recipient of Britain’s Golden Dagger Award, and a winner of the Premio Piemonte Giallo Internazionale. He passed away in 2025. MOSCOW   August 6–August 12, 1991   In Moscow, the summer night looks like fire and smoke. Stars and moon fade. Couples rise and dress and walk the street. Cars wander with their headlights off.   “There.” Jaak saw an Audi passing in the opposite direction.   Arkady slipped on headphones, tapped the receiver. “His radio’s out.”   Jaak U-turned to the other side of the boulevard and picked up speed. The detective had askew eyes set in a muscular face and he hunched over the wheel as if he were bending it.   Arkady tapped out a cigarette. First of the day. Well, it was one A.M., so it wasn’t much to brag about.   “Closer,” he said, and pulled the phones off. “Let’s be sure it’s Rudy.”   Ahead were the lights of the peripheral highway that circled the city. The Audi swung onto the ramp to merge with highway traffic. Jaak edged between two flatbed trucks carrying steel plates that clapped with every undulation of the road. He passed the lead truck, the Audi and a tanker. On the way, Arkady had caught the driver’s profile, but there were two people in the car, not one. “He picked someone up. We need another look,” he said.   Jaak slowed. The tanker didn’t pass, but a second later, the Audi slid by. Rudy Rosen, the driver—a round man with soft hands fixed to the wheel—was a private banker to the mafias, a would-be Rothschild who catered to Moscow’s most primitive capitalists. His passenger was female, with the wild look achieved by Russian features on a diet, somewhere between sensual and ravenous, with short, stylishly cut blond hair brushed back to the collar of her black leather jacket. As the Audi passed, she turned and sized up the investigators’ car, a two-door Zhiguli 8, as a piece of trash. In her thirties, Arkady thought. She had dark eyes, and a wide mouth and puffy lips, parted slightly as if starving. As the Audi swung in front, it was followed by the sound of an outboard engine and the appearance of a Suzuki that inserted itself between the two cars. The motorcycle rider wore a black dome helmet, black leather jacket and black high-tops that “sparkled with reflectors. Jaak eased off. The biker was Kim, Rudy’s protection.   Arkady ducked and listened to the headset again. “Still dead.”   “He’s leading us to the market. There are some people there, if they recognize you, you’re dead.” Jaak laughed. “Of course then we’ll know we’re in the right place.”   “Good point.” God forbid anyone should exercise sanity, Arkady thought. Anyway, if anyone recognizes me it means I’m still alive.   All the traffic squeezed off the same exit ramp. Jaak tried to follow the Audi, but a line of “rockers”—bikers—swarmed in between. Swastikas and czarist eagles decorated their backs, all wreathed in the rising smoke of exhaust pipes stripped of m