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A Cold Red Sunrise (An Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov Mystery)

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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 enough!

Billyjhobbs@tyler.net

Highly regarded A Cold Red Sunrise has serious logic and language mistakes. The author inserts Russian words in his sentences ignoring their tense, time, gender. Characters address each other improperly in many instances. Some names are no longer around and seem to be pulled out of The Dictionary of 17th Century Forgotten Russian Names. This permissible mistake for a foreigner is overshadowed by a sloppy phrase that runs like this, "Rostnikov felt frustrated, for his only witness is an Evenk who doesn't even speak English." While writing this phrase, S. Kaminsky forgot that all characters including Porfiriy Petrovich don't know a single English word. The author meant to say "an Evenk who doesn't even speak Russian," but forgot that his story takes place in Russia. Furthermore, inspector Rostnikov never explained how he arrived at his conclusions. His reasoning, explaining why ... had an affair with ..., makes up a closed loop (for the sake of those who haven't read the book, names are omitted).

The book was interesting as a picture of Soviet society in the 1980s, but its mystery plot sure needs some work.

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!

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.

I enjoy the books in this series for the pictures they paint of life in the USSR (and later Russia), of the landscape and of people's daily lives. However, I am surprised that (I believe) this particular one was nominated for an Edgar.

I found the ending of one of the subplots puzzling. Unless I missed something, A initiated an affair with B to be able to convince B to kill C who was going to reveal a secret. But the secret seems to have been that A and B were having an affair, which was begun only to protect "the secret." Do we have a chicken and egg problem here?

Another problem is the frequency of information presented late in the novel in which the character says "... But you must have read that in my file." And, yes, Rostnikov has known this all along but the readers have been led down the garden path into making logical but erroneous assumptions. Is this totally cricket?

A COLD RED SUNRISE
An Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov Mystery
by Stuart M. Kaminsky
Narrated by Mark Hammer
Copyright 1988 by Stuart Kaminsky
Performance copyright 1991 by Recorded Books, Inc.
Unabridged 6 audio cassettes, 7.75 hours

This is came from public library resell store market major collection central general.
So, that is library stickers and marks and official making are normally include.
But, case has been seen cracked tapped and dirt.
But, still playable.
But, still listenable.
where your sitting.
when you wakling.
Almost anywhere.
Ya they are care you as you care them.
Then... turned on, handed on.
[from the experience]

"The killer poured a drink from the bottle on the table and waited, waited and watched.
The secret of success was surprise, patience and anticipation.
The killer knew that, had been taught that, had already gone out in the snowy night to take care of the possibility of temporary failure.

Just before midnight a round, bundled figure stepped out of the door of the weather station and limped slowly, even more slowly than he had come up the slope, down toward the square. He was alone.

The killer lifted the nearby binoculars and scanned the frost-covered windows of the houses around the small square. No one was visible. It was time for the killer to act."
[from the A Cold Red Sunrise]

"No one had much liked the Commissar Illya Rutkin.
He had been too self-aggrandizing, behaving as if the death of Samsonov's little girl was merely a minor detail, a bothersome fly in the ointment that had landed him in Tumsk, Siberia---their iced---over hell---in the first place.

But, no one expected Rutkin to end up at the very door of the People's Hall of Justice, frozen solid, the victim of two fatal icicle wounds through the eye and neck.

When Inspector Rostnikov arrives in Siberia to sort out Rutkin's death, his back is very much against the wall.
Rostnikov has crossed the KGB's ubiquitous path one too many times in the past.
Now his every move is being carefully observed and monitored.

Accompanied by his allotted watch-dog, Sokolov, and his loyal partner, the grim-faced Karpo, Rostnikov must prove that both child and Commissar died at the hands of the same killer, and not some monstrous hallucination issued forth from the Siberian wasteland.

"Kaminsky captures the
RUSSIAN SCENE AND CHARACTER IN RICH DETAIL."
[The Washington Post]
(from the back of case covers)

I confess that I'm not a detective/inspector/mystery/suspense/thriller aficionado but of the few I've read this book fits one of the genres, having a brewing suspense and an ease at which a reader may turn the pages. I'm not sure what a reader may learn about Siberia since the book's village has twenty or so people. That it's cold? Moscow is cold also but has ten million people to provide a greater depth of interest. The writing seems to be a standard fare of clarity and neither obscure or cumbersome. Toward the end the plot accelerates and there are some jumps in the disclosure of 'who done it'. There is one instance of Chekhov's Gun failure which I believe is a set up for the following book and which I believe should have been handled differently. Worthy of purchase when the kindle price reaches the $2.99 level.

A COLD RED SUNRISE is an interesting read in that it shines some light on the former Soviet Union and it's policing methods. It also shows some Russian police officers doing a dangerous job in a society that seldom appreciates their efforts not to mention usually at the whim of politicos that hold the power...hmm? Guess they're not all that much different that we are and could describe the working life of police officers anywhere.
A good story.

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.

Having lost his last battle with the KGB, and the death of the KGB colonel who had protected him; Porfiry is demoted to working mundane and inconsequential cases. But when a Commissar sent to the Siberian town of Tumsk (pop.12) to look into the death of a dissidents daughter, is murdered. Porfiry and 'the Vampire' are packed off to Siberia to find out what happened to the commissar.

Along with Rostnikov and Karpo is an investigator from the Procurators office who everyone knows is there to spy on Porfiry. Even Karpo will have to report on his boss to the KGB Major who replaced Rostnikov's colonel. The main suspects for the murder are the dissident himself, his second wife of two years, an ex-orthodox priest, and an exiled General. Along to help out is the local policeman (who expects Porfiry to get him out of siberia) and an odd pair of eightysomethings who have been in the town for fifty-one years.

Just like a locked room story, all of the suspects are stuck in the town. The only way out is by helicopter, and the phone exchange is controlled from the naval weather station. To add to Porfiry's worries, his son Josef is back in Afganistan, and his wife Sarah has developed a benign (but large) brain tumor.

As always, Kaminsky develops some great ancillary characters (including an indigenous shaman of the Evenk tribe). Even Tkach is given his own investigation to follow in Moscow since he doesn't go to siberia.

All in all a very fast and good read.