Caffeinated Politics

This week, the last two books in the Inspector Rostnikov series by Stuart Kaminsky arrived from Amazon. As I took them from the package, I wondered what suspense they would hold. Over the next few months, they will land in my hands, and then there will be no more to anticipate.

I was crowdsourcing in 2020 to discover new fiction authors to enjoy as the COVID pandemic curtailed our movements and made home the center of our lives. For James and me, it was not such an imposition as our interests and projects just continued and even picked up in some cases, such as with our reading lists.

I have forgotten which friend alerted me to Kaminsky, a crime fiction writer who wrote the Inspector Rostnikov series. I term his style of writing as using an economy of words. Each book has about 270 pages, roughly 10 chapters. He conveys the mood and tone of Moscow or a resident of the city in a few crisp, well-packaged sentences.

I had read years ago that Kaminsky’s writings were so effective because he had the power of restraint. But with the perfect words and their alignment, he let readers feel Moscow’s moods seep in through the paragraphs. Snow‑choked streets, dim stairwells, the weight of a bureaucratic system that grinds down even the decent people. His books moved fast, but the atmosphere lingers.

Kaminsky himself was a Chicago‑born writer and film professor, educated at the University of Illinois and later Northwestern, where he earned his PhD. He wrote several long‑running series, but the Rostnikov novels became his most decorated work, earning him an Edgar Award for A Cold Red Sunrise. He died in 2009, but I am proof his fan base continues to grow.

The Rostnikov series begins in the late Soviet era with Death of a Dissident, where a politically charged murder forces Inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov to navigate both crime and ideology. By Black Knight in Red Square, the city feels tense and watchful, a place where every conversation has a shadow. Kaminsky never overexplains the politics; he lets the cases he tangles with do that.

As the Soviet Union fractured, the novels shifted with it. Hard Currency and Blood and Rubles show a country where new freedoms arrive hand‑in‑hand with new predators. Tarnished Icons pushes deeper into the moral fog of post‑Soviet crime, where the old rules have vanished, and the new ones are written by whoever has the most muscle or money. 

Rostnikov himself is steady, thoughtful, and quietly stubborn—a weightlifter with a philosopher’s patience. His team is full of flawed, loyal officers, but Sasha Tkach stands out: boyish, sexy, earnest, with that lock of hair that keeps falling onto his forehead. Kaminsky returns to that detail in book after book, a small softness in a world that rarely allows softness to survive in Moscow.

I discovered a bevy of new authors, at least to me, starting in 202o. From John Lescroart to David Silva (thanks to George Meyer) and from David Hewson to Chris Pavone. I read the books by the authors in a chronological fashion, and when one in the series is completed, I make sure the next book is either on the shelves or ordered, so when the mood strikes, it is available. James has a corresponding affection for books. We consider our book budget akin to the defense budget. At the start of 2020, these shelves were empty on the second floor, as we had made the purchase of the house in 2019. The first-floor shelves are filled, as are the third-floor shelves. Like everything in our lives, our interests merge.

Stuart Kaminsky created characters who strived for moral, ethical, and humane outcomes even in a society under extreme strain. The books show people trying to stay honest while the ground shifted beneath them. As I started to read them as the pandemic surged and some people acted recklessly and without regard for the greater good, I was proud to have his volumes on my shelves.

Thanks, Stuart, for many hours of reading pleasure.