Fall of a Cosmonaut [Hardcover]

Stuart M. Kaminsky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 21, 2000

It was one of those days when Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov should have stayed in bed. After braving a ferocious storm, Rostnikov arrives inside the Petrovka headquarters only to find three very peculiar investigations waiting for him. First there's cosmonaut Tsimion Vladovka, whose last words on the space station Mir were instructions to contact Rostnikov if something went wrong with the mission. Now, Vladovka is missing and his fellow cosmonauts are turning up dead. Then there's filmmaker Yuri Kriskov, who is fearing for his life after being threatened by a chess-crazed lunatic who stole his documentary on Tolstoy. And finally, there's the scientist who was murdered while researching psychic phenomena during dream states. Inspector Rostnikov must find a connection between these very strange cases...before another murder can take place.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It's no coincidence that Chief Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov, Stuart Kaminsky's popular Moscow policeman, reads Ed McBain novels. McBain's 87th Precinct and its denizens are a lot like Kaminsky's Office of Special Investigation, and in this 13th outing in the author's series featuring Rostnikov and his colleagues, the parallels are particularly outstanding. Kaminsky, who also pens the Toby Peters, Abe Lieberman, and Lew Fonseca series, has published extensively on Hollywood icons such as Gary Cooper and Clint Eastwood, worth noting because his detectives share many of their qualities and more than a little of their style.

This lively thriller has Rostnikov and his investigators working three cases: the disappearance of a cosmonaut; the theft of the final negative of a Russian movie epic on the life of Tolstoy; and the murder of a parapsychologist. Each offers a handful of suspects, motives, and an opportunity for one of Rostnikov's detectives to take center stage: the inspector and his son Iosef on the search for the last survivor of a mission on Mir gone horribly (and secretly) wrong; Sasha, whose wife and children have left him and whose mother is driving him crazy, trying to sort out who's behind the extortion attempt on the movie producer; and Karpo and Zelach, assigned to the murder at the Center for the Study of Technical Parapsychology, where, to Zelach's dismay, his unusual (and unwelcome) telepathic gifts are accidentally discovered by a researcher who won't take no for an answer.

In due time, the cases are solved, the loose ends wrapped up, and the lives and loves of Rostnikov and his men have become as important to the reader as the guys at the 87th Precinct have become over time to McBain's readers. Both authors share a mastery of their craft, an unhurried but intellectually challenging pace, and a gift for characterization that is equaled by few other writers in the genre. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

Even middle-range Rostnikov is better than much other mystery fiction, as Kaminsky proves in his 13th book about the one-legged Moscow policeman, whose stature and resilience fully justify his nickname of "The Washtub." The three cases that occupy Rostnikov this time around have neither the depth nor the range of the crimes in 1999's exceptional The Dog Who Bit a Policeman, but taken together they do provide a sad picture of a country thrashing about in search of an identity. Rostnikov, a man enough at home in the world to sing softlyAalbeit in garbled EnglishAthe lyrics of a Creedence Clearwater Revival song during a rainstorm, is once again our perfect guide. He and his failed-actor-turned-cop son, Iosef, spend most of their time searching for a missing cosmonaut, one of the crew of the beleaguered Mir space station, who happened to mention Rostnikov's name on a tape before something bad happened in space that made him disappear after his return to Earth. Iosef's lover, Elena Timofeyeva, and her partner, Sasha, are involved with a nasty and pompous film producer, whose epic film on the life of Tolstoy has been stolen by people who want the producer dead. And Emil Karpo, Rostnikov's deliberately unimaginative deputy, is leading the investigation into the murder of an unpopular scientist at the Center for the Study of Technical Parapsychology. All these cases turn out to be less absorbing than they at first seem, but Rostnikov and his team are so vivid and palpable that it almost doesn't matter. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Mysterious Press; First Edition edition (September 21, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892966688
• ISBN-13: 978-0892966684
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #173,779 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Outstanding Russian Mystery, February 12, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Fall of a Cosmonaut (Hardcover)

Kaminsky writes 3, no 4, series of crime novels. The Toby Peters stories are enjoyable but only that. The Leiberman series has a bit more substance, but still read like the slow second movement of the standard 4 movement symphony. The Fonseca series has just begun. Vengeance was above average (compared to all mystery/suspense/crime/ whatever..writers). Retribution was much in the Leiberman vein--slow, winding down, world-weary ad nauseam. Where Kaminsky SHINES is in his Russian/Rostnikov series. Not all the dozen or so novels have been equally good, but even the weakest presents real, alive, fleshed-out characters, beginning with the truly inimitable Rostnikov ("the washtub") and his vampire-like underling Emile Karpo, probably the most striking and original continuing character in any myster/suspense series of ALL time. But it is the world of Moscow and the world of the highly-intelligent weight lifting Rostnikov that with his Jewish wife, playwright son (seques into detective), the Yak, the silver haired Colonel and all the colorful characters and settings that make this series vibrate with life. This latest novel, perhaps his best (and, sad to say, perhaps his last) is set up with the usual three plots, unrelated, except for Rostkinov getting involved in more than one. The plots involve the film industry, the space industry and the government funded paranormal acitivities research section. If you haven't read prevevious entries in this series, you will be impressed by this novel with its depth and color and unusually well-done dialogue (for a mystery). But having read all the previous novels, save the first, it is not only a good book but a triumph of Kaminsky in creating and forcing the reader to love and appreciate his characters not just as cogs in a plot (e.g. Lovesey's characters), but having a literary quality, a richness that even Faulkner or Camus would have enjoyed. Cosmonaut is an unalloyed triumph of man, of his spirit, and of the vital diversity that makes man what he/she is.
My feeling is that Kaminsky has ended this series, but I would urge him to reconsider--even an average Rostkinov novel is worth two Leiberman's, three Fonsecas, and four Peters. Anyway read this book. It is GREAT.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Suspense and the daily grind in crumbling Russia, November 9, 2000

By 

Lynn Harnett (Marathon, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fall of a Cosmonaut (Hardcover)

The economic and political mess of Russia provides prime hunting grounds for Kaminsky's Edgar Award-winning ("A Cold Red Sunrise") Porfiry Rostnikov series. "Fall of a Cosmonaut" opens with a prologue set in the crumbling Mir Space station where Rostnikov's name is mentioned by cosmonaut Tsimion Vladovka in the midst of a major unexplained disaster.

A year later, Tsimion is missing and Rostnikov, head of Special Investigations, receives an ominous order to find him. Meanwhile, brooding Marxist stoic Emil Karpo and his unassuming partner Arkady Zelach investigate murder in a lab for paranormal research and Elena Timofeyeva (recently affianced to Rostnikov's son Iosef) and Sasha Tkach, his habitual depression overlaid by a peculiar euphoria since his life has bottomed out, are sent to recover a a great Russian epic film being held for exorbitant ransom.

The character-driven narrative shifts from case to case, encompassing the points of view of each investigator as well as various witnesses, victims and villains. The tone is a cross between Ed McBain's 87th Precinct (a particular favorite of Rostnikov's) and the Zen practicality of Janwillem van de Wetering. Personal developments entwine with investigations and everything is complicated by the daily difficulties of Russian life and occasional political incursions.

Kaminsky, who also writes the Toby Peters and Abe Lieberman series, delivers another well-constructed, well-written entertainment.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best in the Russian series., October 4, 2000

By 

John T. Davis "jtdd" (Asheboro, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fall of a Cosmonaut (Hardcover)

If you have read the other books in this Russian series by Stuart Kaminsky I think that you will agree that this one stands out. It is like getting a letter from home bringing you up to date on what is happening to close friends or even members of your family. The characters are interesting and consistent from beginning to end. I would recommend that you read the previous books in sequence to build the background necessary to grow fully attached to the characters but it is still a good stand-alone story. I certainly hope that this is not the last in the series.