Renko exposes corruption and dishonesty wherever he finds it, including on the part of influential and well-protected members of the elite, regardless of the consequences. In 1979, John Le Carre completed the last volume of his highly esteemed “Karla Trilogy” ( Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Honourable Schoolboy; and Smiley’s People), in which he depicts in detail the culture of the British Spy Network. Arkady tries to discover as much as he can from Kirwill to confirm the corpse's identity, without admitting that he suspects Osborne. To identify the victims and uncover the truth, he must battle the KGB, FBI, and New York police as he performs the impossible--and tries to stay alive doing it.

What most interests readers may be not the supposed mystery nor the diffuse criminal investigation, but the daily details of a society and culture they didn't know before (and which has somewhat passed now), as revealed through an example of the crime thriller genre. To identify the victims and uncover the truth, he must battle the KGB, FBI, and the New York City police as he pursues a rich and ruthless American fur dealer.

Gorky Park'' depicts a society where it is important to own a washing machine even if it doesn't work, so that your neighbors know you possess such a wonderful thing. Interrogation is largely a process of rebirth done in the clumsiest fashion possible, a system in which the midwife attempts to deliver the same baby a dozen times in a dozen different ways. It is a standard trope of the police procedural to begin with the discovery of the victim(s), and then to move on to the introduction of the detective whose job it will be to solve the murder(s).

I read this as a teenager and have a distinct memory of loving it, but couldn't remember a single solitary thing about the plot. Militia chief homicide investigator Arkady Renko finds an enemy of his from the KGB on the scene showing an interest in the bodies, and that can mean nothing but trouble.However when he arrives in Gorky Park to view the three bodies frozen in the snow, he finds that he is not the first investigator on the scene. There are scenes of meetings between nefarious officials and underworld characters which made no more sense to me than they did to Renko, other than establishing confusing relationships or misdirections as to with whom Renko is friendly. Arkady flees a meeting with Misha before a gang of killers arrive, but is too late to prevent Iamskoy from appropriating the reconstructed head and destroying it. Even before the finding of the Gorky Park corpses, Renko has been having plenty of troubles of his own.

Meanwhile, Renko falls in love with a beautiful, headstrong dissident for whom he may risk everything . His friends and colleagues have troubles of their own, especially as one of his officers is a KGB informant.Chief Inspector Arkady Renko is tasked with solving the murders of three people found in Gorky Park, their bodies frozen and killed weeks earlier, hidden by the snow. Some perspective might have helped (especially for people like me whose knowledge of geography and history is downright-laughable). run of domestic crime -a Muscovite brains his spouse with a vodka bottle and wanders off, leaving a trail of gore that Abbott and Costello could follow. So, I think you will enjoy this novel if you like crime stories with complex plots, set in very atmospheric locations, and with a central character who is a flawed individual battling demons of a personal nature in additional to departmental and political 'turf' barriers at home and abroad.