Polar Star

Written by Martin Cruz Smith

Narrated by Frank Muller

Ex-Chief Investigator Arkady Renko is in deep on the “slime line”—the fish-gutting station—in the Polar Star, a Soviet fish factory ship of some 250 souls, almost as many secrets, and a dangerous shipboard sub-culture that cares little for the Party, and less for human life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books Audio
• Release date: Jan 1, 1990
• ISBN: 9781461812388

Martin Cruz Smith

Martin Cruz Smith’s novels include Gorky Park, Stallion Gate, Nightwing, Polar Star, Stalin’s Ghost, Rose, December 6, Tatiana, The Girl from Venice, and The Siberian Dilemma. He is a two-time winner of the Hammett Prize, a recipient of the Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award and Britain’s Golden Dagger Award, and a winner of the Premio Piemonte Giallo Internazionale. He lives in California.

Reviews for Polar Star

[mlhershey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

SO HARD to keep the characters straight. Still a compelling read.

[tmph_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Almost finished and I'm so happy to have found these books. I love Arkady Renko, and who says Cold War mysteries died with the Fall of the Berlin Wall? Martin Cruz Smith's descriptions and actions of the Soviet Political Officers are so interesting and often, of course, very funny.

[hanneri_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Shunted off to a Soviet psychiatric hospital after Gorky Park (embarrassed the state, but son of a famous military father), former Inspector Arkady Renko manages to get sent to work on a Russian fishing/processing ship in the Bering sea, finding some peace on the "slime line" gutting and scaling. As usual, a body drops out of the nets--a young Georgian woman on bad terms with the Soviet authorities and Americans in Alaska. Arkady is called upon to redeem himself by wading into another diplomatically and emotionally charged situation, with the possibility of a return to civilization and a reunion with Irina.

[stahl2ricco · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The sequel to Gorky Park, and in my opinion, the better novel! Arkady has been cast out of Moscow and has ended up on the Polar Star, a fishing "ship" where he works on the slime line. But when a woman named Zina is murdered, Arkady gets to investigate again. Then the action really begins! Most of which takes place on the Polar Star, with a quick detour to American on shore leave. I liked the pace of this thriller, the characters, and as always, Arkady. Great sequel!

[datrappert · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Second book of the series is a bit plodding compared to the first. Perhaps because it takes place on board a Russian fishing trawler, where Renko has been exiled after the incidents described in Gorky Park. Probably worth a reread after all these years, however.

[tjsjohanna_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mr. Smith creates in this novel the atmosphere that I imagine when I think of the Soviet Union - insanity and doublespeak and one man who knows what he should say and do but can't seem to resist the pursuit of truth even in the face of his own punishment or death. Arkady is back - landed in the lowest of the low places in a country that doesn't really know what to do with him. Pulled against his will into an investigation on the factory ship where he has been hiding, it remains to be seen if "waking" up again will do him any good at all.

[ecw0647 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I’m not sure why I delayed getting to this title since I enjoyed Gorky Park so much, to which this book is a sequel of sorts. Of sorts, because it follows directly on the heels of Gorky, but the author in a few brief paragraphs lays out precisely why Arkady, formerly head investigator for the prosecutor’s office in Moscow is now working as a slimer on a factory ship in the Bering Sea.

It’s good. Those who don’t like what they view as excessive detail in Moby Dick probably won’t like this book either, but as you know, I wallow in all manner of detail and the descriptive scenes of working on the factory ship were quite interesting, particularly when they discover a slime eel (hagfish) in the body of a Russian woman who was dragged up by one of the accompanying American trawlers (it’s a joint Russian/American business.) Totally gross.

Because of his previous investigative experience, the captain pulls Arkady from the factory line and has him investigate, wanting to have everything kosher for the American observers on board. Arkardy is forced to walk a very fine line between those in power who see no reason for an investigation, nor do they want one, and his innate sense of justice that refuses to accept the official verdict of suicide when all the evidence points in a different direction. Everyone lies and everyone has nefarious reasons for doing so. It’s a world populated by paranoiacs and schemers.

Lots of reflections on Russian society; comments like “In irony we lead the world,” which in context is not only amusing but perspicacious. And, my goodness, Smith has a dim view of people in general if his books are any testament.

[bezoar44 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In Gorky Park, Martin Cruz Smith conjured a claustrophobic atmosphere in Soviet-era Moscow; that task is simpler here, where the action takes place on a handful of ships and a single, small Aleutian island. Yet the overall feel is considerably more upbeat, perhaps because former detective Arkady Renko enters this story at rock bottom, cutting fish on the slime line of a fish processing ship. A young woman worker from the boat goes missing but, before anyone really notices, reappears from the depths of the ocean, hauled up in a fishing net. Renko is drafted to solve the mystery, then undrafted, but he's hooked; a combination of integrity, curiosity, and pressure from above won't let him drop it. The author makes Renko smart, tough, and canny. There's plenty of psychological complexity, but it belongs to other characters, so a reader can follow along as Renko sorts it out, without having to wade through pages of the detective probing his own soul. The novels in this series are pretty astringent, and would be hard to read straight through, but are a real pleasure with a break in between.

[neurodrew · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Polar StarMartin Cruz SmithMonday, August 13, 2012 9:25 PMArkady Renko is a former police investigator, now disgraced, and working on the “slime line” on the Soviet factory fishing ship “Polar Star”. When the dead body of a female crewmember is dragged in a net from the sea floor, he is pressed into service as an investigator again. In the grim surroundings of the ship, he pursues with singular concentration the truth of the girl’s death. The Polar Star is serving as host to several American trawlers, and in the end the CIA is involved, as well as the grim Soviet mafias smuggling drugs on the side. Renko is an interesting, moody character, and the setting is superbly described. I bought this as a “Signed Limited Edition” from the Franklin Library, on a recommendation from a book review.

[thewasp_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Arkady Renko, Investigator, has had his 'party card' removed for being 'politically unreliable" following the investigation of 3 murders in "Gorky Park". He now finds himself in the Bering Sea, on the Russian factory ship "Polar Star", and processing the catch of American fishermen. He has not left the ship for 10 months and is trying to "lay low" following his earlier disgrace. Unfortunately the catch yields the body of a female crew member and as Arkady is the closest they have to an investigator he is reluctantly enlisted to assist in solving the crime. Much has been going on while Arkady has had his head down and now it seems not everyone wants the death investigated.The book is well written and entertaining.

[hugh_ashton_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I like Renko as a personality. I am not sure how accurate the descriptions of Soviet life are, or how plausible the characters and events may be - obviously a lot of research has been done, but it reads somewhat like an outsider looking in, rather than an insider writing about their own life.However, it is a wonderfully absorbing story, with a setting that is unique and thrilling in its own right, no matter what the plot or the actual factual accuracy of what is being described. I like the style - some flashes of wit and deadpan humour throughout the book - maybe there are more in the next volume in the series, Red Square, but they are here as well. Certainly one of my favorite Renkos.

[jastbrown · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Smith is a master with this series. I buy his books without even knowing the plot. I find myself continually checking my sources to see if he has another on the way. It has been far too long.

[joycepa_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

2nd in the Arkady Renko series.Renko, though he has actually done nothing wrong, is not in high repute in the militia—after all, he did kill a prosecutor even if it was in self-defense. Stripped of his job and worse, Party card, Renko “gets out of town”—to Siberia, where the militia will not make any real determined effort to get him. He signs on as a seaman 2nd class, lowest of the low, on a fish factory ship, the Polar Star, that is headed out to the Bering Sea to fish in a joint venture with the Americans. His job? The “slime line”—cleaning and gutting fish.But when a young woman is hauled up in the nets along with the fish, the captain of the Polar Star, orders a very reluctant Renko to conduct the investigation into her suspicious death.Another excellent story by Smith, set in the Arctic cold of the Bering sea. Along with a very good plot that has a satisfactory number of twists and turns to keep the reader guessing, the description of the modern fishing process, with catch trawlers and giant processing ships, is interesting. Again, the matrix of political realities in the post-Brezhnev era (“restructuring”) plays an integral part in and adds an enormous amount of interest to the plot. The glimpse we get into Siberian life is fascinating—hardly the barren exile a Westerner so often thinks of, but a thriving part of the Soviet Union, full of energy and freer from the restraints of the Communist bureaucracy than the rest of the empire.Smith's writing is still up-to-date, even though the date of publication for this novel is 1988.Renko is the only recurring character, and he has assumed the cynicism necessary to survive in his half-world of borderline legality. The other major Russian characters are for the most part well drawn, especially Marchuk, the captain and Karp, the Siberian urka. But the rest tend to be stereotypes; the Americans are caricatures. Still, they serve well enough for a story that is meant to stand or fall on its plot; you’re in this for the excitement, not for character development.Good entertainment. Highly recommended.

[bookmarque · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Renko fascinates me on his own, but combine that with the esoteric world of international fishing, party politics, murder and smuggling and I’m helpless to put the book down. Even after reading this at least ½ dozen times, it still resonates and there are scenes I cannot get out of my head. I really like Arkady’s process. He’s not a genius, but he is persistent, shrewd and diligent. Some things come to him like a revelation out of the ether and some only come after careful analysis, dogged legwork and piecing together of evidence. Sometimes he’s devious and plays people to get them to do what he wants. Other times he’s completely off base his inherent goodness blinding him to humanity’s ugliness. That’s what makes him so appealing to me; his humanity and vulnerability as well as his toughness and intelligence. No wonder women are drawn to him like iron filings to a magnet.The mystery and plot are good and the danger high as usual. This one isn’t quite as good as Gorky Park, but it is excellent.

[pzmiller_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

While this is a mystery, it is also so much more. The description of the fish processing ship is incredible.

[alicejonez · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The second outing for Smith's gloomy Russian detective Arkady Renko sees him banished to a factory ship on the Bering Straits. There's the usual mix of colourful characters, colourless party apparatchiks, and plenty of sinister twists

[punxsygal · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

After his disgrace in Gorky Park, senior homicide investigator Arkady Renko has been hiding in Siberia. Polar Star finds him working the slime line on a Soviet factory ship which is working in cooperation with American trawlers in American waters. He hasn't set foot on land in almost a year. The last net of the night comes up bearing the body of a woman missing from the Russian ship. On his captains orders, Arkady unwillingly, painfully is drawn back into his life as a detective. A dark story of Russian life, the cold of the Bering sea and events surrounding one man trying to learn the truth about the death of a co-worker.

[jdcage · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Dark, funny, fascinating -- and somehow inspiring. Along with December 6, the best books written by a very gifted author.

[edwardsgt · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My second Renko novel after Gorky Park. This one is set aboard a Russian trawler in northern waters (hence the Polar Star title), where Renko has to get to the bottom of a murder on board. As usal an excellent sense of time and place, if rather a dark, gloomy story.