A Cold Red Sunrise

The characters in this mystery are wonderfully distinct. Emil Karpov is my favorite with his morgue-like face and his surprisingly endearing quality of fanatic communism that bends, just a little, toward humanism. "The man like a tree stump" is the Inspector Rostinokov with his keen mind, realistic vision, and his interest in other people's children, his own son fighting in Afghanistan. The "who" of the whodunit was a satisfactory surprise and the whole novel gave me a much deeper understanding of Siberia and the Russian community at the time.

I have read about a half dozen Porfiry Rostnikov mysteries by Stuart Kaminsky, and I think A Cold Red Sunrise was the most enjoyable so far. A young daughter of a dissident living in Siberia dies under mysterious circumstances, and an investigator from Moscow is sent to Tumsk. When he is brutally murdered, Porfiry Rostnikov (a detective in Moscow's Bureau of Special Projects) is dispatched to this same Siberian town. Rostnikov takes with him his trusty associate, Emil Karpo. Rostnikov is expendable and has already been demoted from the procurator's office. He has both procurator spies and the KGB watching him, hoping that he'll do something inappropriate. At the same time, fellow associate Sasha Tkach is back in Moscow, investigating robberies, black market offenses and attacks on tourists. What made A Cold Red Sunrise so enjoyable is the mini-lesson Kaminsky provides on Siberia. Covering over 5 million square miles, Siberia is short on daylight, summers and warm weather, but rich in beauty and natural resources. Nicknamed The Sleeping Giant, it has long provided a landing place for Russian dissidents, prisoners and misfits. There are not a lot of residents living in Tumsk, but almost everyone is a suspect. How Rostnikov breaks the case is ingenious. My only suggestion in reading this series is to read them in order. Since the personal lives of the regulars progress with each book, it will make them more meaningful. I only regret that I am reading these books much faster than Kaminsky is writing them. In fact, he hasn't had a new Rostnikov in a number of years.

If you haven't read Stuart M. Kaminsky's Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov series and you like intrigue, foreign settings, absolute suspense, and logical conclusions, you have missed a literary treat. Kaminsky, writer of such successes as the Toby Peters series, the Lieberman series, and the "Rockford Files," writes most knowledgeably of Moscow and its politics, its social intrigues, its criminal elements, and he does so most convincingly with his Inspector Rostnikov, an iconoclast among the Soviet system and is always one step away from being "shipped to Siberia" (or worse) for his independence. However, his crime solving abilities are so brilliant that he manages to stay "on board." Rostnikov is a war hero "almost single-handedly stopping a Nazi tank" and highly decorated and praised by his Moscow superiors. He is left with a mangled leg, however, and over the course of the year, despite the lingering pain, has overcome its handicap, primarily by his daily routine of weight lifting, the love and support of his wife and son, and his own strong will and determination. His wife is Jewish, and owing to the (still) anti-Semitic attitudes of the political system there, the inspector continually has to face reality. He has assembled his own loyal supporters within his office: Emil Karpo (the policeman nicknamed "the Vampire") and handsome Sasha Tkach, as well as other acquaintances. Readers seem to look forward to seeing each of these in each of the episodes, almost as if they are family members. Kaminsky has the ability to penetrate the smog, the freezing temperatures, the long lines at the shops, the graft and corruption seething ubiquitous-like throughout the Soviet system, and in a way that perhaps no outsider could do. It is amazing, especially if you've ever been to the Soviet Union, how he does this! In "A Cold Red Sunrise" the inspector has been assigned to Tumsk, a far-flung town in Siberia, "where the temperature is forty below on a good day"! His assignment has come due to one of his clashes with the KGB. Two people are dead, one of them the daughter of a famous dissident, and the other a Moscow police officer sent out to investigate her death. Now it is Rostnikov's turn to solve the crime--and the KGB hopes he won't succeed. But Porfiry is not without his own inimitable resources and once again his brilliance as a police detective emerges. Naturally, there are implications that go all the way back to Moscow and somebody's political intrigue there. But Rostnikov must tread lightly, as if one ice, as he knows one mistake and, war hero or no, he is doomed. Fortunately for him, his Siberian assignment is for only one novel! There is no doubt in the reader's mind that Rostnikov will find the solution, but the suspense is still there all the same. This series is absolutely mesmerizing and, to me, Kaminsky can't write them fast [email protected]

If you haven't read Stuart M. Kaminsky's Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov series and you like intrigue, foreign settings, absolute suspense, and logical conclusions, you have missed a literary treat. Kaminsky, writer of such successes as the Toby Peters series, the Lieberman series, and the "Rockford Files," writes most knowledgeably of Moscow and its politics, its social intrigues, its criminal elements, and he does so most convincingly with his Inspector Rostnikov, an iconoclast among the Soviet system and is always one step away from being "shipped to Siberia" (or worse) for his independence. However, his crime solving abilities are so brilliant that he manages to stay "on board." Rostnikov is a war hero "almost single-handedly stopping a Nazi tank" and highly decorated and praised by his Moscow superiors. He is left with a mangled leg, however, and over the course of the year, despite the lingering pain, has overcome its handicap, primarily by his daily routine of weight lifting, the love and support of his wife and son, and his own strong will and determination. His wife is Jewish, and owing to the (still) anti-Semitic attitudes of the political system there, the inspector continually has to face reality. He has assembled his own loyal supporters within his office: Emil Karpo (the policeman nicknamed "the Vampire") and handsome Sasha Tkach, as well as other acquaintances. Readers seem to look forward to seeing each of these in each of the episodes, almost as if they are family members. Kaminsky has the ability to penetrate the smog, the freezing temperatures, the long lines at the shops, the graft and corruption seething ubiquitous-like throughout the Soviet system, and in a way that perhaps no outsider could do. It is amazing, especially if you've ever been to the Soviet Union, how he does this! In "A Cold Red Sunrise" the inspector has been assigned to Tumsk, a far-flung town in Siberia, "where the temperature is forty below on a good day"! His assignment has come due to one of his clashes with the KGB. Two people are dead, one of them the daughter of a famous dissident, and the other a Moscow police officer sent out to investigate her death. Now it is Rostnikov's turn to solve the crime--and the KGB hopes he won't succeed. But Porfiry is not without his own inimitable resources and once again his brilliance as a police detective emerges. Naturally, there are implications that go all the way back to Moscow and somebody's political intrigue there. But Rostnikov must tread lightly, as if one ice, as he knows one mistake and, war hero or no, he is doomed. Fortunately for him, his Siberian assignment is for only one novel! There is no doubt in the reader's mind that Rostnikov will find the solution, but the suspense is still there all the same. This series is absolutely mesmerizing and, to me, Kaminsky can't write them fast [email protected]

Kaminsky has a knack for a Russia which teeters at the edge of chaos during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In A Cold Red Sunrise, an Edgar - Winning Novel, Porfiry Rostnikov heads to Siberia to solve a perplexing crime, and learns things about the dark side of human nature, about Siberia, and about himself, that enthralls and fascinates the reader. This is Stuart M. Kaminsky at his best, don't miss this one!