Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express: A Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov Novel

Sadly this may be the last in this series, but if so, it ends with a great story, maybe the best in the series. Once again as in all the PPR novels, there are three crimes to be investigated, one by each of the 'teams'.

Iosef and Elena are looking for a murderer on the Moscow Metro system. She has been attacking middle-aged men who look like mid-level bureaucrats. So far she has managed to kill four and wound two. In the last of the attacks observed by a six year old girl, a good description is gotten and Iosef goes onto the subway as a decoy, after Porfiry figures out that all the attacks have been at stations beginning with "K".

Karpo and Zelach are sent out to find the "Naked Cossack" who is the lead singer in a 'skinhead' band. He is the darling of the disaffected in the Moscow underground, where people are known by names like 'Bottle Kaps' and 'Pure Knuckles'. The fear is that one of the Skinny has found out that the Cossack is the son of a wealthy Jewish family, and has kidnapped him for ransom. Once again Zelach surprises us with his knowledge of underground 'heavy metal' music and groups. But there is a problem with Karpo...the 'Vampire' is acting strangely as if his emotions are not under control.

PRR and Tkach are on a mission to find a mysterious courier who is to make a swap of half a million dollars for a package. The "Yak" sends PRR and Tkach on the Trans-Siberian Express, to watch for the swap, catch the courier and recover the 'package' and money. There is a catch (as always) because there is a FSB agent on the train who is also looking for the courier; and worse yet, an assassin sent to kill the courier, and recover both the money and the package.

In addition, we get an interesting lesson as to the building of the T-S Railroad, the conditions and hardships; as well as that of the city of Ekaterinaberg (Sverdlovsk under the Soviets) where the Tsar and his family were murdered and the home and power base for Boris Yeltsin.

There is some fine interplay between Iosef and Elena; Porfiry and Sarah; Karpo and Zelach; Tkach's mother and her boyfriend; and Tkach and his wife Maya. Hopefully at some time Kaminsky will decide to give us one more book that will rap up the series in a nice "package" and we get to say goodbye to everyone.

If you are a mystery fan, or a fan of interesting characters in interesting locales, you should check out Stuart Kaminsky's Russian Police series featuring Porfiri Petrovich Rostnikov.

Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express is quite a good example of the series.

It is well-plotted, with several interweaving story-lines all being pursued by the Special Branch, of which Rostnikov is the head cop.

But, interesting as the plots are, and interesting as the insights on current-day, post-Soviet Russia are, the real charmers in this series and this book are the characters.

They evolve as the series evolves, but they are never less than quirky and fascinating.

Rostnikov, with his shriveled and then amputated leg, his quick but secret mind, his wide-ranging interest in many subjects, is only the start.

There's Sasha Tkach, boyish and impulsive and by turns brave and bedeviled, losing his family to his taste for women and even stronger taste for danger.

There's Zelach, a man of limited intelligence but paranormal intuition.

There's Rostnikov's son Iosef, first a soldier, then a playwright, then a policeman, and his fiancee, Elena Timofeyeva, brilliant and tough as nails but always consumed with self-reproach.

There's crazy Paulinin, the demented pathologist, who speaks to corpses and likes them better than the living.

But best of all, there's Karpo, the vampire, the monk-like devotee of Communism, who, having lost his guiding ideal, and then the only woman or even person he ever felt anything for, now forges implacably ahead making up the law as he goes along.

I have never read anything by Kaminsky and solely on the basis of reader reviews, I tried this one. Alas, 'twas a fizzle. Mildly interesting but basically fluff. I'll grant you it's "clever" but in wholly predictable ways. When it comes to weaving together suspense, violence, plot twists, and insight into Mother Russia, there are others who do it much better. Kaminsky stays on the surface of the snowdrifts. It's a formula book wearing a fancy disguise with a great title that deserves better.

I'm new to Kaminsky, so all the Russian named characters living in a different world made the early going slow. By Book II, however, I was up to speed and turned onto the pace of three overlapping plots:

1. Porfiry Rostnikov, the seasoned Moscow cop with a plastic leg, along with Sasha Tkach is on a mission on the title train in a compartment with a couple of Americans, an intriguing female agent and Pavel Cherkasov, Russia's answer to Henny Youngman. Igor (the Yak) Yaklovev is Rostnikov's Machiavellian boss. He thrives running a police department in a society that acknowledges law enforcement but has no clearly accepted laws and has his own reasons for sending them on the assignment.

2. Rostnikov's son Iosef and partner Elena are chasing Inna, a psycho whose answer to a father's lack of attention is to plunge a kitchen knife into Moscow commuters who remind her of him.

3. Emil Karpo another hardened police vet and his more mystical junior partner Zelach are looking for the missing lead singer in a skinhead rock band. The Naked Cossack, whose real name is Misha Lovski, is the son of a Rupert Murdoch like Moscow media mogul rebelling against his father's life.

The investigations weave through each chapter moving toward independent but simultaneous conclusions. The drama of the chase or who did what to whom, however, is the sideshow. The real story is about how Kaminsky's characters react to what happens around them, both on and off the job. In the end it's not about justice but rather Rostnikov and the Yak manipulating each other to preserve what passes for order in their chaotic worlds. Even if you can't remember their names or identify with their lifestyles, you'll know what makes Kaminsky's characters tick and empathize with the way each plays the hand life has dealt.

(That title had more of a "ring" to it when it was the Marrakesh Express, nyet?)

In his Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov series, Stuart M. Kaminsky has deftly transplanted the Ed McBain police procedural to Russia: individual detectives, each having his/her own serial back stories, (Zelach has a much larger piece this time than he ever has,) investigating different cases. This is all played out against a panoramic backdrop through the time span of the series: the disintegration of the former Soviet Union.

It's not easy trying to be a force for Law and Order in a country having tenuous little of either:
"The laws of Russia were a shambles: a basis in old Soviet law, assumptions of common sense and vague precedents, smatterings of Western manipulations gleaned from reruns of "Law and Order," "L.A. Law," "Rumpole of the Bailey," and ancient black-and-white episodes of "Perry Mason."
The law, in short, was whatever the politically appointed and frequently corrupt judges wanted it to be. While corruption and politics pervaded the old Soviet system, there were still occasional Communist zealots on the bench who stood behind and believed in the oppressive laws in the books they seldom read.
Now the law was written by Kafka."

In the 14th installment of the series, the men and sole woman of the Office of Special Investigations are plunged into the Russian underground heavy metal/neo-Nazi music scene, the Moscow metro subway system, and, of course, riding the Trans-Siberian Express. Prolific author Kaminsky gives the reader a feel for the people and politics while raconting a riveting tale. Rostnikov's immediate supervisor, Igor "The Yak" Yaklovev, a former KGB functionary intent on gathering as much 'dirt" on as many people as possible, is totally devoid of human kindness - reminds this reader of Daniel Benzali's smarmy serpentine character (Robert Quinn) on "The Agency." Through it all, Rostnikov and his crew persevere - like the laborers who built the 6,000-mile Trans-Siberian Express.
reviewed by mbmlaw