The Siberian Dilemma by Martin Cruz Smith

Published by Simon & Schuster on November 5, 2019

The Siberian Dilemma feels like an interlude in Arkady Renko’s fateful life. He is still involved with Tatiana, a fiercely independent journalist in a dangerous occupation. Tatiana has gone to Siberia to cover the political campaign of an oligarch named Mikhail Kuznetsov. When she does not return to Moscow as expected, Renko worries that something bad might have happened to her. From Renko’s perspective, “something bad” might include a romantic attachment to Kuznetsov.

Renko is therefore pleased, more or less, when Zurin, his boss, sends him to Irkutsk to pick up a Chechen named Aba Makhmud and transport him to a transit prison before prosecuting him and assuring he receives a long sentence. Makhmud has already confessed to attempting to kill Zurin. Renko knows that confessions in Russia are worthless and promptly gets to the bottom of the crime. In the meanwhile, his trip to Irkutsk gives him an opportunity to look for Tatiana.

After dealing with Makhmud, Renko meets Tatiana, Kuznetsov, and Kuznetsov’s friend and business associate, Boris Benz, another oligarch in the oil business. Benz plans to inspect some oil rigs that have been sabotaged. He invites Renko to accompany him so they can hunt bear. As the reader might expect, bear are not the only hunter’s prey on the trip.

The story that Martin Cruz Smith tells in The Siberian Dilemma is a bit more sparse than is typical of his Renko novels. Smith keeps the story in motion and creates tension with vivid scenes in the frigid environs of Siberia, but after setting up a dramatic moment near the novel’s end, Smith resolves it with a fortuitous coincidence that departs from his customary realism. This might be the most contrived ending in the series. For that reason, it is less powerful than most of the other Renko novels.

My complaint about the ending doesn’t stop me from recommending the novel. As he has been developed over the course of nine novels, Arkady Renko is one of the most complex and sympathetic characters in crime fiction. Mild disappointment with the plot didn’t prevent me from enjoying Arkady’s most recent battle with Russian corruption or from cheering his reunion with Tatiana. I’m not sure that any crime fiction character is a more endearing representation of the struggle to overcome adversity than Arkady Renko. Smith always writes from the heart, making even a lesser Renko book a better choice than most crime fiction.

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