Blood and Rubles

ISBN: 0449909492

Author: Kaminsky, Stuart M.

Condition: Used

Product Description"Rostnikov is quite simply the best cop to come out of the Soviet Union since Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko in Gorky Park."--San Francisco ExaminerCrime in post-communist Russia has only gotten worse: rubles are scarce, blood, plentiful. In the eyes of Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov and his metropolitan police team, new-found democracy has unleashed the desperation that pushes people over the edge, and has emboldened those already on the path to hell.A trio of nasty cases confirms their worst fears. Deputy Inspector Sasha Tkach must find the murderous thieves who have terrorized an impoverished neighborhood. His blood-stained quarry turns out to be a gang of brothers, aged seven, nine, and eleven years old. Policewoman Elena Timofeyeva joins the tax police in a raid on a house filled with Czarist treasures, worth billions of rubles. The next day every last relic and work of art has disappeared without a trace. And relentless Inspector Emil Karpo will not rest until he finds the Mafia beasts who killed the only woman he has ever loved in a bloody drive-by shooting--Karpo intends to punish them his way.Playing by the shadowy rules of their superiors, and playing against time and the odds, Rostnikov and company have their hands full upholding the law--and holding onto something they can believe in--in a country wracked by political change and its powerful consequences.From Publishers WeeklyKaminsky excels each time he enters the harshness of post-Cold War Russia, a politically and socially volatile world where his Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov is a rarity among policeman: shrewd, utterly incorruptible and destined to survive each complex political shift. As in previous Rostnikov works, including the Edgar-winning A Cold Red Sunrise, the inspector's team has several cases to crack?and, as always, Russian society itself is as much an adversary as the assembled criminals. A gang of tattooed Mafia killers stage a shoot-out that claims the life of a prostitute, the only human to break through the robotic exterior of Emil Karpo, Rostnikov's loyal assistant; three young boys are robbing and killing on the streets; a cache of valuable artifacts vanishes; and the ruthless cunning of a wealthy couple is put to the test in the aftermath of a kidnapping attempt. Fortified by his love for weight lifting, Ed McBain novels, Russian plumbing and American pizza, the rotund Rostnikov perseveres, strong as a bull, lame in one leg and quite clearly nobody's fool.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.From Library JournalIn addition to his Edgar Award-winning Inspector Rostnikov novels, Kaminsky manages to juggle several excellent mystery series at once. Here, Rostnikov struggles against the rising tide of crime in post-Cold War Russia.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.From the Inside Flapkov is quite simply the best cop to come out of the Soviet Union since Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko in Gorky Park."--San Francisco ExaminerCrime in post-communist Russia has only gotten worse: rubles are scarce, blood, plentiful. In the eyes of Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov and his metropolitan police team, new-found democracy has unleashed the desperation that pushes people over the edge, and has emboldened those already on the path to hell.A trio of nasty cases confirms their worst fears. Deputy Inspector Sasha Tkach must find the murderous thieves who have terrorized an impoverished neighborhood. His blood-stained quarry turns out to be a gang of brothers, aged seven, nine, and eleven years old. Policewoman Elena Timofeyeva joins the tax police in a raid on a house filled with Czarist treasures, worth billions of rubles. The next day every last relic and work of art has disappeared without a trace. And relentless Inspector Emil Karpo will not rest until he finds the Mafi