“Independence Square,” Matin Cruz-Smith’s tenth in the Arkady Renko Russian crime series, is no less a masterful work than the first in the series, “Gorky Park.” It continues to baffle me, following the success of “Gorky Park,” in both print and film, that more of Cruz-Smiths work has not been adapted for T.V. or a sequence of films, in the way of Hieronymus Bosch, or James Bond. Of course, Arkady Renko is more an anti-Bond character, having survived the Soviet era and living through the chaos of Putin’s iron-fisted rule of Russia, he’s more a vodka man than a vodka martini.

Nonetheless, the series is a master-class in noir storytelling, with Renko’s moral compass and melancholy grit anchoring the narrative. I’ve read them all, with the exception of “Polar Star,” 1989, and “Hotel Ukraine,” 2025, which I presume will end the series, considering Martin Cruz-Smith’s untimely death from Parkinson’s earlier this year. SPOILER ALERT: In an interesting twist, Arkady is diagnosed with the same disease in this novel. It makes me wonder what more of Arkady’s character is a reflection of the author himself.

Martin Cruz-Smith began his writing career as a journalist for the Press Association, but soon switched to fiction. He wrote several novels under various pen names, none of which I have read. He is something of a benchmark for me, so it would be an interesting exercise to read a couple of his early works, just to see the arc of his development as a writer.

Cruz-Smith also wrote several departure novels, some of which I have read. “Rose,” (a Victorian mystery in a grim, English mining town.) Also, one of my all-time favorites, “December 6th,” (a noir thriller set in pre-Pearl Harbor Tokyo.) “The Girl From Venice,” (A WWII story of love between a Venetian fisherman and a Jewish woman on the run.) The others, “The Indians Won,” “Nightwing,” and “Stallion Gate” are waiting on my seemingly endless reading list.

In this tenth novel of the series, Arkady travels to Kyiv, Ukraine, (the location of Independence Square,) as part of a missing persons investigation; a favor he is doing for a Russian mob boss with whom he has a symbiotic relationship. In Ukraine, Arkady finds himself investigating three murders. Two are obvious political assassinations. The third, seemingly unrelated, takes place in Gorky Park as an interesting reprise to the first Renko novel.

His travel companion, Elena, a Crimean Tatar, and daughter of one of the murder victims, is an activist in an anti-Putin political movement called Forum. She is best friends with the missing person, Karina Abakova, daughter of the mob boss, fellow activist and roommate. Karina, as it happens, is also closely associated with the first murdered politician, Forum leader, Leonid Lebedev.

As with all the Arkady Renko novels, the plot of “Independence Square” begins as a single thread, (find Karina Abakova,) but quickly develops into a snowballing tangle of dangerous intrigue. The crescendo comes in that moment when the careening snowball smashes into a wall of immutable bureaucratic intrigue, and the truth of Karina’s disappearance, her connection to Forum, and the solution of the murders, comes tumbling out of the splatter like the prize in a box of Cracker-Jacks.

I enjoyed this novel very much, as I have each one of the Arkady Renko series. I recommend it, and all the others, to anyone who enjoys the upmarket-crime, suspense/thriller genre.

Unfortunately, Martin Cruz-Smith’s voice has now gone silent. He will be greatly missed, but there is one more of his Arkady Renko novels left for me to read. “Ukraine Hotel” was released this year, and in it, I hope to find out how Arkady Renko’s crime fighting career will come to its inevitable end. Rest in peace, Martin, may God the Father of all creation receive you to Himself.