Book Review: ‘Hotel Ukraine’ wraps up Martin Cruz Smith’s detective Renko book series on a high

Arkady Renko now fumbles with his keys at the door as his Parkinson’s disease gradually grows worse.

The legendary Russian detective has struggled to keep his declining health a secret, but the worsening symptoms have become impossible to hide. Still, Renko is determined to crack the case of a Russian defense official mysteriously murdered in his Moscow hotel room as Russia’s war on Ukraine rages.

The murder takes place at the Hotel Ukraine, a well-known hotel in the heart of Moscow, one of the towering Stalin-era buildings known as the Seven Sisters.

“Hotel Ukraine” is the 11th and last installment in the popular Arkady Renko series by Martin Cruz Smith that he launched in 1981 with his blockbuster “Gorky Park.” Books like “Red Square,” “Havana Bay” and “Stalin’s Ghost” followed.

We don’t find out until we get to the acknowledgments at the book’s end to learn that Smith, like Renko, has also been concealing a Parkinson’s diagnosis for years until it was clear he had to step aside.

The revelation is sure to sadden Smith’s loyal fans who have followed the fictional detective’s career from Moscow’s Cold War days to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the rise of the Russian oligarchs

But the aficionados of the Renko novels will still have a gem in Smith’s latest, which upholds Smith’s reputation as a great craftsman of modern detective fiction with his sharply drawn, complex characters and a compelling plot.

It’s a fresh international detective tale with a backstory pulled straight from recent headlines, referencing world leaders like presidents Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine,Vladimir Putin of Russia and Joe Biden of the U.S.

It’s also a well-informed personal look at how the worsening effects of Parkinson’s can affect an individual, as Renko finds he can still drive, and he can still talk on the phone, but he can’t do both at the same time.

When Renko’s superiors discover his health problems, they place him on paid sick leave. But that doesn’t stop the intrepid detective from continuing his investigation, alongside his lover, journalist Tatiana Petrovna.

Renko discovers a Russian military group was involved in the killing and is being helped on the sly by Marina Makarova, a government official and former lover who he is working with on the official probe.

After a somewhat slow start, the action in the novel speeds up as the story advances, and the end approaches with multiple twists and surprises.

“It is surprising to think that I have had Parkinson’s for almost 30 years. For most of that time I have been remarkably well,” Smith writes in the acknowledgements. “But this disease takes no prisoners, and now I have finished my last book. There is only one Arkady and I will miss him.”

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