Hard Currency

Up to this title, I've read all the Rostnikov Novels. They are worth the time, because they are no effort to read, because they are a joy, an intense character study of characters and crime and politics in the Soviet Union and then Post-Soviet Russia. Reading the early stories, keeping in mind Kaminsky is writing about a totalitarian/socialist wasteland steeped in paranoid political intrigue where survival is a life and death struggle, Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov, a decent man, husband and father, isn't someone we root for but `struggle along with.' The struggle is great as Rostnikov balances his life on a very thin tightrope stretched over a dark, dangerous political chasm. Being that Rostnikov must contend with a leg maimed by a war related injury, crossing the tightrope is made even more difficult as the maimed leg is also a character in the books, which he deals with on a daily basis, negotiating with it, cajoling it to behave, and work with him. Rostnikov's world is not a friendly one. Enemies are everywhere. The KGB, the MVD the Politburo itself must be considered in every thought and action, while he must keep in mind the safety of his Jewish wife and his son, who in the early stories is a pawn, having been drafted into the Soviet military, and at one point, sent to Afghanistan in support of the Soviet Union's ill fated invasion of the land. Along the perilous journey though the dangerous landscape of Soviet Russia and into Post-Soviet Russia, the inspector, is a accompanied by Deputy Inspectors Thach and Karpo. Both characters are solid and thoughtful, as they deal with their own lives and Crisises. Thach, the young good looking man, trying to perform well in a job he slowly begins to hate, and Karpo, the staunch Marxist and believer in the law, who one day must come to terms with the fall of the Soviet Union, and the only life he's ever known. `Hard Currency' Karpo and Thach are on the trails of a serial killer with over forty victims to his credit and counting. Rostnikov is investigating a crime of murder in Cuba, which like the Soviet Union, is not a paradise, but a brooding, melancholy land immersed in its own slow political boil. The Soviet Union is gone, but the political machinations continue.

Marvelous tale of Havana and Moscow with Kaminsky's collection of carefully developed and in-depth detectives and fleshed-out other characters. Socialists and most liberals won't like the novel's honest and forthright portrayal of a fetid Havana--some socialist/communist pipedreams and delusion die hard. The plots were interesting and the development of Karpo's character was enjoyable and intriguing. The villain in Moscow was depicted multi-dimensionally--I could feel viscerally and emotionally the psychosis which enslaved him, conflicted him, and evoked sympathy from this reader at least. The description of the "cult" and its members in Havana was awesome. When people are virtual slaves, these kinds of secret societies have to evolve so that the slaves can have something to live for. Kaminsky writes effortlessly and at times beautifully. Also, unlike so many suspense/crime books, I felt as though I was learning more about other people and also examining and questioning myself and my values, affections etc. Highly recommended