Changes

|title=Tatiana

|author=Martin Cruz Smith

|publisher=Simon and Schuster UK

|date=November 2013

|summary=Tatiana, Cruz Smith’s eighth Arkady Renko novel, is a flimsy addition to a series of thrillers that appears to be adhering to the law of diminishing returns. This is all the more regrettable given that Renko is, I believe, one of the most compelling characters in modern thriller writing.

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''Tatiana'' is the eigth Cruz Smith novel featuring the Russian detective Arkady Renko, with the action taking place in Moscow and Kaliningrad. For those new to Cruz Smith’s books, they offer a novel twist on the modern murder thriller, set as they are in Eastern Europe; and in Arkady Renko, the archetype of the hard-bitten detective is given extra frisson by the knowledge that – in the early novels at least – his trademark insubordination can lead to rather more severe consequences than those faced by Western detectives. Whilst the first four novels were both engrossing and complex, the latter novels have felt increasingly light, as though Cruz Smith has been treading water and relying on the appeal of his central character to keep readers returning. ''Tatiana'' continues this trend and is, in consequence, one of the weakest in the series.

Sadly though, much of the novel fails to match the depth of plot and characterisation evident in earlier works such as ''Gorky Park''. I also yearned for a line as vibrant and evocative as that in ''Red Square'', when a colleague tells Renko that ''observing you smoke is like watching someone commit suicide''. In contrast, the opening line of ''Tatiana'' – ''It was the sort of day that didn’t give a damn'' – is cod Bukowski and unworthy of a writer as accomplished as Cruz Smith. In previous novels, Renko’s readiness to court death in order to protect innocents was anchored in a pessimism about the worth of his own existence. In ''Tatiana'', he has a reason to live – his love for and duty towards Zhenya – yet his willingness to face a murderer at the novel’s denouement feels strangely without any tension.

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