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July 31, 2005 Issue 
Hard Currency by Stuart M. Kaminsky Fawcett Columbine, 1995 
Back to the USSR Why is it that like criminals who cannot stay away from the scene of the crime, we long to revisit scenes of our past? By the accident of birth, the "great communist experiment" formed the foundation of my life and sadly, I may never be free of that past. The pull of all things East European, Soviet and Balkan is ever present. I will be forever haunted by the world that stretches from the Danube to the Urals and from the Gulf of Finland to the Adriatic, a world subjecting to its Slavic angst even peoples of non-Slavic blood. A family emergency required that I dash off to Indianapolis on a very short notice but not so short that I couldn't look for a book into which I could escape from reality. I wanted something on the order of "Gorky Park" by Martin Cruz Smith or Robert Ludlum's espionage novels. Roaming the library stacks for such a book, I stumbled upon a completely unfamiliar author - Stuart M. Kaminsky. It turned out that he is a very prolific mystery writer. The hammer and sickle on the cover of "Hard Currency" cinched it for me. It s one of Kaminsky's numerous mysteries with Porfiry Rostnikov - a Russian police inspector a la investigator Renko of "Gorky Park"- as the main protagonist. Like Renko, Rostnikov - honest, brooding and dedicated to justice - is caught in a web of political duplicity and manipulation. He has survived Stalinism and has seen the dictatorship of a decaying system crumble and be replaced by chaos and American style crime. "Hard Currency" is set in the days following the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Terror, once the domain of the Communist Party, is now a function of wanton crime. The former Soviet economy is in shambles and the transition to capitalism is an unlikely-to-materialize mirage. The political intrigues and clandestine power battles of old still go on. A left-over-from-the-old-days Soviet adviser in Cuba is accused of murder, a Kazakhstani minister dies mysteriously in Moscow and a serial killer returns to roam the streets of the city with an unprecedented vengeance. Rostnikov and his detectives are assigned to the serial killer case when Rostnikov and a lovely young detective Elena, are dispatched to Cuba to investigate the murder of which the former Soviet adviser is accused. While their colleagues in Moscow try to catch up with the deranged serial killer, the investigation plunges Rostnikov and Elena into the mysteries of the Santeria and the grim reality of life in communist Cuba. Despair, sarcasm, helplessness and resignation to the caprices of fate, permeate the lives of the characters both, in Russia and in Cuba. But Rostnikov's colleagues in Moscow - all unique personalities, eventually get the serial killer and Rostnikov and Elena complete their Cuban assignment in a manner that satisfies everyone. All return to their grim little lives of communal kitchens and baths, food and clothing shortages and daily struggle for survival. Throughout the novel the characters frequently drift into philosophical musings, quoting various writers and philosophers: "The greatest comedy is tragedy. Do you know who said that?" Rostnikov asks Elena. "Lenin?" she tries to guess. "Gogol," he tells her. "The law," one of Rostnikov's Moscow colleagues quotes to his superior, "is simply a superstructure for the existing system of power, whatever that power may be." "Lenin," the superior says with confidence. "Marx," the detective corrects him. These quotes, illustrating poignantly and succinctly a given situation, are full of wisdom that we ought to heed. Ophelia Georgiev Roop Library Director San Bernardino Public Library |
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