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
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
Prolific Kaminsky (the Edgar award^-winning author has three other series characters going) returns, for the thirteenth time, to the moody, caustic Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov of the Moscow Police. Rostnikov has a highly Russian habit of making every relationship complex, including the one he endures with his prosthetic leg, and serves as a kind of opera glass turned on post-Yeltsin Russia. Porfiry oversees three separate mysteries here: the disappearance of an astronaut after he is recalled from the disintegrating space station
Mir; the murder of a research parapsychologist; and the prerelease theft of a movie about Tolstoy, considered the worst of all Russian crimes. These mysteries intersect like nesting dolls, with each hidden bit of information growing to a disturbing whole. Kaminsky is brilliant at pacing his revelations, giving his characters believable quirks, and, especially, bringing a complex society to life.
Connie FletcherCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to an alternate
kindle_edition edition.
From Library Journal
It's always a bit of a heady thrill to buck a trend, but in the face of overwhelming praise for Kaminsky's police procedurals featuring lovable and capable Chief Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov, this reviewer found it as easy to digest as a bowl of week-old borscht. The novel begins interestingly enough: an event aboard the Russian space station MIR sets into motion a series of earthbound crimes that include the death of an expert in parapsychology, the theft of a major film about Tolstoy, and the disappearance of the cosmonaut who asked for Rostnikov's help while still on MIR. Of course all of these threads are eventually woven together in an admittedly clever style, but the drab background of the crumbling Russian state, the Byzantine mixture of plot lines and characters, and the overly theatrical Russian accent used by reader Nick Sullivan make listening to this book a chore. Kaminsky has legions of dedicated fans who will gobble up this 13th Rostnikov novel, but this listener would take the crackling dialog found in Ed McBain's "87th Precinct" stories any day over this convoluted glimpse into the Russian police system. Buy for demand. Joseph L. Carlson, Lompoc P.L., CA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an alternate
kindle_edition edition.
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.
--This text refers to an alternate
kindle_edition edition.
About the Author
Stuart M. Kaminsky (1934-2009) was one of the most prolific crime fiction authors of the last four decades. Born in Chicago, Kaminsky penned more than sixty novels over his lifetime. In 1981's Death of a Dissident, Kaminsky debuted Moscow police detective Porfiry Rostnikov, whose stories were praised for their accurate depiction of Soviet life. He died in St. Louis in 2009.
--This text refers to an alternate
kindle_edition edition.
Review
“The burden of being human falls to Kaminsky’s philosopher-policeman, Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, and his Moscow investigators, who shoulder the duty with the resignation and humor that do them—and this enduring series—honor.” —The New York Times
“Fortified by his love for weight lifting, Ed McBain novels, Russian plumbing and American pizza, the rotund Rostnikov perseveres, strong as a bull, lame in one leg and quite clearly nobody’s fool.” —Publishers Weekly
“Quite simply the best cop to come out of the Soviet Union since Martin Cruz Smith’s Arkady Renko in Gorky Park.” —The San Francisco Examiner
--This text refers to an alternate
kindle_edition edition.
In a Kaminsky mystery featuring Russian Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov, you typically find several more or less interrelated police stories running more or less concurrently. So it is here, as Rostnikov tries to find a cosmonaut missing after returning from an accident--maybe--on the Mir space station, while some of his colleagues investigate a murder and others seek a stolen film about Tolstoy. Everything comes together at the end in a most satisfactory way. Equally satisfactory is the work of reader Nick Sullivan, who expertly captures Russian pronunciation (he had help, for which Chivers Sound Library gives credit in the narration) and dramatically involves himself in the story he is telling. He enjoys it, and so will his listeners, especially if they're already Kaminsky fans. This is good stuff, writing and reading. T. H. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine--
Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
--This text refers to an alternate
kindle_edition edition.
![Fall of a Cosmonaut (Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov Mysteries Book 13) by [Stuart M. Kaminsky]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ej+4119iL._SY346_.jpg)
