Tatiana

An Arkady Renko Novel

By: Martin Cruz Smith

Narrated by: Henry Strozier

Martin Cruz Smith's “masterful” (USA TODAY) and “irresistible” (People) New York Times bestseller and Washington Post notable book of the year: Arkady Renko must connect the dots among a Russian journalist’s mysterious death, corrupt politicians, murderous gangsters, and brazen bureaucrats.

Arkady Renko, one of the iconic investigators of contemporary fiction, has survived the cultural journey from the Soviet Union to the New Russia, only to find the nation as obsessed with secrecy and brutality as was the old Communist dictatorship. In Tatiana, the melancholy hero unravels a mystery as complex and dangerous as modern Russia itself.

The reporter Tatiana Petrovna falls to her death from a sixth-floor window in Moscow the same week that a mob billionaire is shot and buried with the trappings due a lord. The trail leads to Kaliningrad, a Cold War “secret city” that is separated by hundreds of miles from the rest of Russia. The more Arkady delves into Tatiana’s past, the more she leads him into a surreal world of wandering sand dunes, abandoned children, and a notebook written in the personal code of a dead translator. Finally, in a lethal race to uncover what the translator knew, Renko makes a startling discovery that draws him still deeper into Tatiana’s past—and, paradoxically, into Russia’s future, where bulletproof cars, poets, corruption of the Baltic Fleet, and a butcher for hire combine to give Kaliningrad the “distinction” of having the highest crime rate in Russia.

More than a mystery, Tatiana is Martin Cruz Smith’s most ambitious and politically daring novel since Gorky Park. It is a story rich in character, black humor, and romance, with an insight that is the hallmark of a writer The New York Times has called “endlessly entertaining and deeply serious…[not merely] our best writer of suspense, but of one of our best writers, period.”

Dead people won't stay dead....

In post-soviet Russia, nothing is what it seems...or is it? One thing that is clear and certain is that murder has taken no leave from the society....Arkady Renko finds himself trying to find a killer...or killers...and as usual the odds seem not in his favor. This novel is a fast-paced and satisfying mystery with an ending that fits the overall story...I liked Gorky Park better, but I was glad to visit Renko again....

A page turner

I love the settings and the moods the story ducked me in deep and I never wanted to let go

pretty good

Where does Tatiana rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It is not the best but also not the worst of the Arkady Renko novels, and those who complained about the speaker must be in a hurry, I liked the slow pace, it fits the character, I think.

What about Henry Strozier’s performance did you like?

Good pace, slower than normal but fits.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I laughed several times

LAURA Goes to Russia

Where does Tatiana rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I've enjoyed all his novels. This one was predictable but it didn't make it any less enjoyable.

Slow starter

Found it hard to get into the story but when I did I finished it in less than 12 hours. It wasn't a five star book but enjoyable.