Almost 30 years ago, in at his novel "Gorky Park," Martin Cruz Smith introduced us Thurs Arkady Renko, the Moscow homicide investigator Ken arrived on the page Almost Fully alienated - from at his past, from at his profession and from the Soviet system. In "Polar Star," the man apart Became the man adrift; working on the "slime line" of a Russian factory ship. Each Renko novel seemed Thurs Propel ITS hero Further to the Margins; the newest, 'Three Stations' Finds Shocked by the investigator at his own irrelevance and advancing age. "Who was this stranger graying," Renko wonders, "Who rose from bed at his, usurped and occupied at his clothes at his chair at the prosecutor's office?"

Even a dwindling Renko is, of course, a brilliant cop But in this slim, ephemeral novel That Almost fitfully illuminates the new oligarchs of Russia, drugs, sex Slavery, Decadence and degradation, who is also Life Style Conscience and memory. It's a memory increasingly at odds with at his native city. "This Arkady's Moscow wasn't anymore, 'we learn as Renko navigates an old bohemian neighborhood now frequented by" leggy women with Prada bags Ken circulated from Pilates class Thurs tapas bar, from tapas bar to sushi, raw fish from Thurs meditation. "

Those are, of course, the lucky women. In "Three Stations' we get to know the unlucky ones: Maya, Sold into child prostitution, and Vera, found murdered in a filthy trailer. Vera's murder Forms the core of the plot as Renko, disobeying orders and "Facing dismissal, stubbornly That follows a trail Leads him to the truth - if not to justice. "You have no authority and no protection," Arkady's drunken colleague, Victor, tells HIM, "What are you looking for? Blood on the sidewalk and a round of applause?"