---
product_id: 8511636
title: "Red Square: A Novel"
brand: "martin cruz smith"
price: "11.11 OMR"
currency: OMR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 8
url: https://www.desertcart.com.om/products/8511636-red-square-a-novel
store_origin: OM
region: Oman
---

# Red Square: A Novel

**Brand:** martin cruz smith
**Price:** 11.11 OMR
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Red Square: A Novel by martin cruz smith
- **How much does it cost?** 11.11 OMR with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.com.om](https://www.desertcart.com.om/products/8511636-red-square-a-novel)

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- martin cruz smith enthusiasts

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## Description

Red Square: A Novel

## Images

![Red Square: A Novel - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51G0brq2aBL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    You can take Arkady out of Russia but you can't take Russia out of Arkady,Zhivago/Columbo mix #3
  

*by B***S on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 2, 2019*

The entry to this series, Gorky Park, introduced Arkady Renko as a sympathetic and very Russian character, who was a investigator for the Moscow militia when he ran afoul of the powers that be. Faced with a choice of doing the right thing and being true to a woman that he loved he made the wrong career move. The second entry to the series, Polar Star, was released 8 years later in 1989 and takes place after Arkady was confined and undergoing psychiatric rehabilitation. Busted out by a KGB friend/adversary, Arkady led the powers that be on a not so merry chase across Siberia before ending up on a Soviet factory fishing ship where his investigative skills came in useful for the state and he ended the book actually in good graces with his government. Red Square came out three years later in 1992 and the author shows increasingly smooth and nuanced writing skills that he has gained over the years. As the book opens the USSR has undergone a leadership change and as a result of loosening and opening up Renko is invited to return to his old job. He quickly falls from grace as an informant in his current investigation of black market excesses is killed and signs of high level collusion come out. Russia is in turmoil, central authority is floundering, the normal people are going hungry, the stores and shops are empty while the newly emergent Russian mafia is thriving. Corruption is rampant as more than a few citizens embrace capitalism with a passion. At black markets stacks of luxury items from the west are available for anyone with the riches needed to purchase them. The Soviet Union's various republics, seeing the confusion in the capital, are seizing the opportunity to break free and the fear of a violent crackdown spreads. Soviet society seems to be collapsing. This is the setting for a skillfully crafted, novel with fully fleshed characters, spot on world building and, as always, Arkady Renko remains one of the more appealing protagonists in modern crime fiction.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Where Is Red Square?
  

*by D***D on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 2, 2017*

“Red Square” by Martin Cruz Smith is one of Smith’s Arkady Renko series. It is a police investigator story set in Moscow, Munich and Berlin during the final days of the crack-up of the former Soviet Union in the summer of 1991. There’s lots of killing, blowing people up, car wrecks, chases, stabbings and other murderous mayhem, all of which surrounds a kind of ridiculous love story between Arkady and Irina (and Max).There are the usual number of near-misses, serious injuries and hand-wringing intrigue, including double-cross episodes and lots of strange names to work your memory muscles over. There’s plenty of ethnic racism toward just about everyone but especially at Chechens, overt negativity about life in Russia, jealous contrasts between East and West, and overall a grand abundance of way too many pages in a story that should have ended long before it did.It’s too long with too many twists and turns, too many miraculous escapes and too many characters. The in-depth look at the differences between Americanized Western Europe and the disastrous results of 50 years of Communism in the East are stark and for the most part realistic.  There is no humor as well there might not be in a story such as this. In sum, it was a very American story.Nonetheless, I liked the writing, I liked Arkady and his dilemmas, and I admired the intricate scenarios and the extensive travelogue-style visits to the 3 cities.  As police detective stories go, this one is quite good. And yet, I could not help but compare author Smith to the Norwegian great contemporary writer, Jo Nesbo, who writes about similar people in Norway and has his own series of detective stories (the Harry Hole series).  Smith is no Nesbo. However, I will try another by Smith.One learns, interestingly enough, about art and art history, as well as life in pre-Putin Russia.  The words “Red Square,” it seems, stand for much more than the well-known plaza in front of the Kremlin.All-in-all I give it a 4.4, rounded down to an Amazon 4.  It was entertaining, if a bit gruesome and at times just silly.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Brilliant!
  

*by P***S on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 10, 2015*

This is a beautifully written book, more so because it has no literary pretension. Red Square is written as entertainment, and yet it is wonderfully literary, full of rich atmosphere, multi-faceted characterization and intelligent dialogue. To read it is to steep yourself in the cynical, contradictory, dysfunctional world of Soviet Russia, as seen through the character of criminal investigator Arkady Renko, a man simultaneously compelled to rebel against a corrupt system while being psychologically incapable of divorcing himself from it. It is this kind of contradiction that gives Renko his depth, and it is the wonderful dialogue Smith writes for him that gives him his appeal. Renko is the kind of person who never says anything that has only one meaning. When a customs agent at an airport remarks to him that he must be “anxious to go home,” he responds in his typically enigmatic way, “I am always anxious when I go home.” Renko is always the smartest person in the room, and always the person least invested in having people know that. He is someone who prevails not because he is stronger or more intelligent than everyone else, but because he understands his shortcomings better than his opponents understand theirs. Meanwhile, Smith peppers his prose with human insight and poetic description. Renko realizes that there’s a restaurant beyond a hedge, for instance, when he hears “the chatter of cutlery” from the other side. As for plotting, yes, there’s a plot. You have your KGB agents, your Russian mobsters, your fanatic Communists and your corrupt officials. Most of them end up dead, some as the result of particularly unpleasant experiences. There are a number of surprises and plot twists, a thread of romance and a smidgen of sex. What this book is really about, though, is a fascinating, complicated character who, in the process of making his way through a world that is painfully familiar to him, reveals a world that is refreshingly alien to us.

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*Last updated: 2026-02-28*