Three Stations

Arkady Renko returns in a new novel involving a kidnapped baby with a mysterious teenage mother, a dead prostitute, police corruption, and as always, the cold, dark, impenetrable landscape of modern-day Moscow.Martin Cruz Smith is known for novels that are peopled with fascinating, flawed and three-dimensional characters. Arkady Renko himself has plenty of his own problems. His prosecutor keeps him bored to death, and he's struggling with the onset of middle age. His longtime partner and friend Victor Orlov returns as well, beginning with an arrest for public drunkenness. And the mysterious 15-year-old chess prodigy, Zhenya, whom Arkady shelters and attempts to parent, has a larger-than-usual role to play in Three Stations.