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Polar Star Martin Cruz Smith Books

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Polar Star Martin Cruz Smith Books

Polar Star by Martin Cruz Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I originally read Martin Cruz Smith's Polar Star when it first came out in 1989, having already read his first Arkady Renko book, Gorky Park. I remembered it as a fine read, with the type of sardonic protagonist I enjoy. I decided to read it again because one of my current works in progress is set above the Arctic Circle, and I wanted to see how Smith handled the Arctic as a location. Having just completed Polar Star again, I determined it is still a fine read, with the type of sardonic protagonist I enjoy.

At the end of Gorky Park, Renko lost his job as a Moscow police investigator. After escaping the clutches of the KBG, he spent the ensuing years in a variety of menial jobs, keeping a low profile, until he ends up gutting fish on the "slime line" of the Polar Star, a Soviet factory ship. The USSR is going through its period of Perestroika, or restructuring. The Polar Star is part of a joint Soviet-U.S. venture in which American trawlers catch the fish and the Polar Star processes them.

The body of Zina, a young, female Polar Star crew member, is hauled aboard the Soviet ship in a fish net. Knowing Renko's past employment as an investigator, the Polar Star's captain, Marchuck, orders the fish gutter to determine Zina's cause of death. Was it an accident or suicide? Renko reluctantly agrees, despite knowing Zina's body shows obvious signs of murder, the one cause of death no one wants to consider.

Renko's search for suspects is complicated by the fact the beautiful Zina has slept with nearly every man aboard the Polar Star, including Marchuk. More complications arise when one of the suspects, a fisherman named Karp, is a vengeful former convict put in prison years before by Renko. When Renko's search for facts leads him to the bowels of the ship, he discovers secrets about the Polar Star he was never meant to know.

Smith's Renko books remind me in many ways of Phillip Kerr's Bernie Gunther books. Like Gunther, Renko grows weary as he watches history--in this case, the collapse of the Soviet Union--unfold through the lens of his investigative efforts. Smith does an excellent job of creating the environment of a factory ship at sea, the result of doing extensive on-scene research aboard a real factory ship. His characters are as realistic and tough as the ship itself. Re-reading Polar Star made me regret not having continued with the subsequent books in the Renko series, a mistake I do not intend to make again.


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Polar Star Martin Cruz Smith Books Reviews

“Polar Star A Novel” by Martin Cruz Smith is one of his books in the Arkady Renko series. The action all takes place on a huge Russian fishing boat populated by both men and women in the frigid Bering Sea, part of a joint USA/USSR cooperative fishing project. There is no date supplied but it seems to take place in the early-to-mid 1980s. Renko, who is still in exile and running for his life after being disgraced by the party and banned from Moscow to spend years in Siberia. He works on the fishing boat’s cleaning line in the hold where workers prepare the vast fish catches brought to it by smaller trawlers for freezing or other results. It’s hard work, with little reward (except safety from those who would want to kill him). He’s been at it about a year. Then someone, a girl named Zina, is swept up (dead) in the fishing nets. Renko, a former Moscow police investigator then goes to work to solve the death, or is it murder?

In sum, it’s a long, long way to a cold little house, although the writing is Smith’s usual first rate. The setting is unique, the characters are all odd and unlikeable (except for Renko), and the gruesomeness goes on and on and on. The story is too complex, and the reader doesn’t really know what’s going on until late in the story. Renko’s brushes with near-death are numerous but not credible or believable. Not one of them. There’s too much talk among the huge number of characters, with little of the chatter either interesting or yielding information about the woman’s death. It reads a bit like the icy travelogue you never were interested in in the first place. Even the phony love-story-episode between American Susan and Renko is bogus and oh-so-cold.

It’s always (always) a disappointing story when the people who would readily kill each other are in the same room or location and involved in in-depth, intense conversation with each other, when they should be just doing the job of knocking each other off.

For creativity it’s a 5, for story credibility, it’s a 1.5, and a 1 on general interest. Too complex, too long and drawn out, too, well, over-the top. There’s even a dream interpretation scene lasting several pages! All-in-all I give it a painful 2 on ’s rating scale. Give me a Harry Hole story by Norwegian author Jo Nesbo anytime. It’s not even close.
Polar Star by Martin Cruz Smith
My rating 4 of 5 stars

I originally read Martin Cruz Smith's Polar Star when it first came out in 1989, having already read his first Arkady Renko book, Gorky Park. I remembered it as a fine read, with the type of sardonic protagonist I enjoy. I decided to read it again because one of my current works in progress is set above the Arctic Circle, and I wanted to see how Smith handled the Arctic as a location. Having just completed Polar Star again, I determined it is still a fine read, with the type of sardonic protagonist I enjoy.

At the end of Gorky Park, Renko lost his job as a Moscow police investigator. After escaping the clutches of the KBG, he spent the ensuing years in a variety of menial jobs, keeping a low profile, until he ends up gutting fish on the "slime line" of the Polar Star, a Soviet factory ship. The USSR is going through its period of Perestroika, or restructuring. The Polar Star is part of a joint Soviet-U.S. venture in which American trawlers catch the fish and the Polar Star processes them.

The body of Zina, a young, female Polar Star crew member, is hauled aboard the Soviet ship in a fish net. Knowing Renko's past employment as an investigator, the Polar Star's captain, Marchuck, orders the fish gutter to determine Zina's cause of death. Was it an accident or suicide? Renko reluctantly agrees, despite knowing Zina's body shows obvious signs of murder, the one cause of death no one wants to consider.

Renko's search for suspects is complicated by the fact the beautiful Zina has slept with nearly every man aboard the Polar Star, including Marchuk. More complications arise when one of the suspects, a fisherman named Karp, is a vengeful former convict put in prison years before by Renko. When Renko's search for facts leads him to the bowels of the ship, he discovers secrets about the Polar Star he was never meant to know.

Smith's Renko books remind me in many ways of Phillip Kerr's Bernie Gunther books. Like Gunther, Renko grows weary as he watches history--in this case, the collapse of the Soviet Union--unfold through the lens of his investigative efforts. Smith does an excellent job of creating the environment of a factory ship at sea, the result of doing extensive on-scene research aboard a real factory ship. His characters are as realistic and tough as the ship itself. Re-reading Polar Star made me regret not having continued with the subsequent books in the Renko series, a mistake I do not intend to make again.