Fall of a Cosmonaut

Rostnikov arrives inside the Petrovka headquarters only to find three very peculiar investigations waiting for him. First theres cosmonaut Tsimion Vladovka, then theres filmmaker Yuri Kriskov, whos fearing for his life after a lunatic stole his documentary on Tolstoy. And finally, theres the scientist who was murdered while researching psychic phenomena during dream states.

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.

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 Fletcher
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