Customer Reviews

Hard Currency

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Marvelous tale of Havana and Moscow with Kaminsky's collection of carefully developed and in-depth detectives and fleshed-out other characters. Socialists and most liberals won't like the novel's honest and forthright portrayal of a fetid Havana--some socialist/communist pipedreams and delusion die hard. The plots were interesting and the development of Karpo's character was enjoyable and intriguing. The villain in Moscow was depicted multi-dimensionally--I could feel viscerally and emotionally the psychosis which enslaved him, conflicted him, and evoked sympathy from this reader at least. The description of the "cult" and its members in Havana was awesome. When people are virtual slaves, these kinds of secret societies have to evolve so that the slaves can have something to live for. Kaminsky writes effortlessly and at times beautifully. Also, unlike so many suspense/crime books, I felt as though I was learning more about other people and also examining and questioning myself and my values, affections etc. Highly recommended

While some readers disliked that the two plots never intersected, I didn't mind that. Both were excellent, suspenseful crime stories.

What did bother me was the minor errors in the Havana portion. The practitioners of the religion brought to Cuba by Yorubas are called "santeros," not "santerias." "Santeria" is the name of the religion. I was in La Floridita in November 2000, and it didn't resemble the description in the book. It is my understanding that the bar -- basically, a shrine to Ernest Hemingway -- is unchanged from the 1940s. There were some other faulty descriptions. It's as if Kaminsky's never been to Cuba but got muddled descriptions second-hand. It makes me wonder how true to life his Russia is.

Assigned to investigate a murder in Havana, Cuba by a Russian citizen working with the Cuban government, Moscow Police Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov journeys to the island capital with junior detective Elena Timofeyeva. Rostnikov's preliminary investigation reveals that there were others who wanted the murdered woman dead. Following the thin leads that he has, believing that someone has framed Igor Shememkov in an effort to discredit his country, Rostnikov steps into the dangerous underbelly of the city and comes face to face with a religious group that practices African Santeria. Meanwhile, back in Moscow, police detectives Emil Karpo and Sasha Tkach pursue a serial killer who has killed and mutilated over forty victims. Karp and Tkach are up against the lack of manpower and a kill zone that spreads across the city. And in only a short time, the sadistic killer known as Case 341 and as Tahpor marks Karpo for death.

Stuart Kaminsky's HARD CURRENCY is the ninth novel of the Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov series. Other books in the series include DEATH OF A DISSIDENT, BLACK KNIGHT ON RED SQUARE, RED CHAMELEON, THE MAN WHO WALKED LIKE A BEAR, and MURDER ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAN EXPRESS. In additions, Kaminsky also writes the Toby Peters Hollywood private eye series set in the 1940s during Tinseltown's heyday. He also does the Abe Lieberman police detective novels set in Chicago, and has written two novels about Lewis Fonesca, a process server in Sarasota, Florida.

One of Kaminsky's favorite writers appears to be Ed McBain, the author of the 87th Precinct novels set in Isola, New York, which is basically New York City. In the Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov novels, Kaminsky weaves the police procedural novel into the Russian tapestry, bringing the readers into close contact with the Moscow police investigators, their families, and their fears. The cases both sets of detectives undertake are well thought out and expose a lot of culture and beliefs for the reader to think about. Kaminsky's writing is solid and entertaining, mixing bits of history, geography, and culture in the narrative as well as the dialogue while never losing sight of the chase and the mystery. Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov and his crew of inspectors all emerge as human and fallible, with touching insights into their lives.

As well done and well researched as the novel was, the characters and the cases come across a little too thin with not enough meat. Rostnikov and his crew go through the motions of the investigations, but too little seems at stake.

Fans of Ed McBain's 87th Precinct novels will enjoy the stories Kaminsky has written about Rostnikov and the Moscow police department. Also, regular readers of Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko series also set in Russia will enjoy an additional look at that country, the politics that drive it, and the everyday life of those who live there.

Kaminsky assumes that the reader is a regular follower of Rostinkov, Karpo, Sacha and friends and provides little to enhance his usual exploration of their characters. The setting of Havana is well developed; but, the parallel plots - a murder by a Russian diplomat in Havana, and a Moscow serial killer - are in no way related. Kaminsky has pushed the 2 ideas together under one cover without integrating them.

Up to this title, I've read all the Rostnikov Novels. They are worth the time, because they are no effort to read, because they are a joy, an intense character study of characters and crime and politics in the Soviet Union and then Post-Soviet Russia.

Reading the early stories, keeping in mind Kaminsky is writing about a totalitarian/socialist wasteland steeped in paranoid political intrigue where survival is a life and death struggle, Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov, a decent man, husband and father, isn't someone we root for but `struggle along with.' The struggle is great as Rostnikov balances his life on a very thin tightrope stretched over a dark, dangerous political chasm. Being that Rostnikov must contend with a leg maimed by a war related injury, crossing the tightrope is made even more difficult as the maimed leg is also a character in the books, which he deals with on a daily basis, negotiating with it, cajoling it to behave, and work with him.

Rostnikov's world is not a friendly one. Enemies are everywhere. The KGB, the MVD the Politburo itself must be considered in every thought and action, while he must keep in mind the safety of his Jewish wife and his son, who in the early stories is a pawn, having been drafted into the Soviet military, and at one point, sent to Afghanistan in support of the Soviet Union's ill fated invasion of the land.

Along the perilous journey though the dangerous landscape of Soviet Russia and into Post-Soviet Russia, the inspector, is a accompanied by Deputy Inspectors Thach and Karpo. Both characters are solid and thoughtful, as they deal with their own lives and Crisises. Thach, the young good looking man, trying to perform well in a job he slowly begins to hate, and Karpo, the staunch Marxist and believer in the law, who one day must come to terms with the fall of the Soviet Union, and the only life he's ever known.

`Hard Currency' Karpo and Thach are on the trails of a serial killer with over forty victims to his credit and counting. Rostnikov is investigating a crime of murder in Cuba, which like the Soviet Union, is not a paradise, but a brooding, melancholy land immersed in its own slow political boil. The Soviet Union is gone, but the political machinations continue.

For the first time Porfiry is sent out of the country to determine whether a Russian engineer in Cuba, actually committed the murder of which he has been accused. He takes Elena Timofeyeva with him because she just happens to speak spanish as opposed to Sasha who speaks french. While Rostnikov is in Cuba, Karpo and Tkach follow the clues that will lead them to the murder of Kazahkstani Foreign Minister and a serial killer (who has killed 41) called "the Ox".

This is a very week book, in that the secondary characters, who are usually the strength of Kaminsky, are cut-outs and poorly defined ones at that. There is even a russian gang boss, who except for the accent could be the same guy who is in the "Lieberman" series. On top of that the killer is one-dimensional and boring, it's like he's there for Karpo to find anytime he wants to.

The descriptions of Havana, except for the multiple mentions of the old American cars from the thirties and fifties, and the slowly deteriorating pre-Castro buildings are repetitive and sad. The rap-up of the murder is itself almost pitiful in the way Kaminsky brings in the Cuban government and probably delighted the Cuban community in South Florida (Kaminisky lives in Sarasota), but it's weaker than instant coffee.

Martin Cruz Smith wrote about post soviet Cuba in "Havana Bay", in his inspector Arkady Renko series. If you want some good descriptions of the city of Havana and life in Cuba, read that instead.

Kaminsky last Rostnikov book was written in 2001, and I think that was a good idea because the fall of the Soviet Union seems to have taken all the steam out of the series. Just one man's opinion.

Personally, I think Kaminsky is one of the finest mystery writers to ever set pen to paper, and his Porfiry Rostnikov series is top notch. This one is no different, although a bit more grusome than most.

The biggest problem I had with this book was not the writing, but the narration by Blackstone Audio's Barrett Whitener, who manages to make just about every character sound like a cartoon character. Gone is the world-weary voice I always associated with Rostinikov, as read by Mark Hammer, who does the series for Recorded Books, Inc.

Each character -- even the stern "Vampire" Karpo (one of the greatest characters in mystery series!) -- has a lilting, high pitched voice that fails to convey his stern, disciplined manner.

And what was the narrator thinking when he did the voice for the pathologist! Just awful. In addition, when the Cuban characters speak Spanish, it's a total disaster because Whitener obviously can't say "adios" convincingly.

I realize it's always difficult to change readers mid-stream once we've become used to one person. But the transition can be make if the second reader is talented and tries to maintain the same general characterization as the preceding books. But, unfortunately, Witener does not appear up to the task or was completely unfamiliar with the characters in the series.

Part of the blame, of course, has to go to Blackstone audio (which normally produces excellent audio versions) and the director. But whoever's fault it is, it made the book nearly intolerable to me.

To really enjoy this book -- or any of Kaminsky's Rostnikov books -- be sure to get the Recorded Books, Inc version of this book, with Hammer's narration.