Well, this is sad news: Martin Cruz Smith died last week. One of my favorite authors, most notably for his series set in the Soviet Union (and later Russia, and later still, Ukraine), featuring his soulful, chain-smoking antihero, Investigator Arkady Renko.
His (gift link) obit tells the story of his breakthrough with “Gorky Park,” first in the series, set in Cold War Moscow and published in 1981, to great acclaim. An elegant and stylish writer, he managed to catch a wave that tracked the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. and recent history of what came after; the second in the series, “Polar Star,” took place on a Soviet factory ship in the Bering Sea during the Perestroika/joint venture era. Then came “Red Square” (post-collapse), “Wolves Eat Dogs” (Chernobyl), “Havana Bay” (Cuba), “Stalin’s Ghost” (the swing back to the right), “Three Stations” (oligarchs), and four more. I read them all, but something changed around “Stalin’s Ghost,” which is when Smith announced his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, and the change he’d had to make in his process: As I recall, he would sit in a chair, compose sentences in his head and recite them to his wife, Emily, who would write them down. And I don’t know what that says about writing, and rewriting, but the books were different, first subtly, then noticeably, then (to my mind) disastrously so.
Gone was the stylish prose; the later books feel like he was using a ghost, and who knows, maybe he was. He made a lot of money off the early books, but money runs out, and maybe he needed some. Or maybe he just had to do them — writing is like that. But it was sad to see Renko reduced to such a thin ghost of what he’d once been. The last book in the series, “Hotel Ukraine,” was published just last week. I guess I’ll read it, because I’m an Arkady completist, but it’s gonna hurt, I know.
No one ever said death was pleasant. But we remember the good people. All crime/detective fiction follows a formula of sorts, and the great ones find new ways to calculate the formula. Smith did that, no small feat.
In other news at this hour, Hulk Hogan croaked, too. No great loss.
Also, Chuck Mangione. There’s a very strange party going on the bardo right now.
And now we head into the weekend, when it promises to be cooler. I’ll try to stop complaining about the weather. None of us live in Gaza, after all.
Have a good one, all.
ROGirl said on July 25, 2025 at 4:55 am
We shouldn’t forget Malcolm Jamal Warner. Here’s hoping the Grim Reaper is coming for some more deserving souls.
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Jeff Gill said on July 25, 2025 at 7:12 am
Note to self: when trying to intimidate or belabor the Fed chairman, using numbers may not be the best approach.
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Jeff Borden said on July 25, 2025 at 8:38 am
“Polar Star” was so damned good I missed my L stop and rode the train to the end of the line on my way home from work. I walked back to our house from there in, yes, a swirling snow. Renko was a marvelous fictional character, one of the greats.
My despair over what’s become of our so-called legacy media was deepened yesterday as NBC News led its flagship news program with the death of a steroid-addled racist, union scab and all around punkass shithead. Terry Bollea aka Hulk Hogan. Gaza should be the lead story every night. Or, Ukraine. Or, whatever horrible thing that orange meathead did to make our lives more miserable and our nation more of a global laughingstock. Man, what have we become?
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Brandon said on July 25, 2025 at 1:49 pm
We shouldn’t forget Malcolm Jamal Warner.
Indeed.
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Deborah said on July 25, 2025 at 2:46 pm
I think I read that Hulk Hogan died from some sort of heart failure, which, if I’m not mistaken, is fairly common for people who’ve been taking steroids for a long time.
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alex said on July 25, 2025 at 3:44 pm
I flipped from NBC to CBS when the former led with a tribute to Hulk Hogan. CBS made it the second or third big story and buried Chuck Mangione until about the middle of the show. I got the feeling CBS was trying to patronize its usual right-wing critics by mentioning Hogan’s devotion to MAGA and showing clips from his appearance at the last Republican National Convention.
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Brandon said on July 25, 2025 at 4:41 pm
Hulk Hogan’s Saturday morning cartoon was on CBS in the mid-80s.
Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling was animated and produced by DIC Animation City. It featured animated adventures of popular WWF stars from the time, including its title character Hulk Hogan and his group of face wrestlers fighting against a group of rogue heel wrestlers led by “Rowdy” Roddy Piper.
…
The wrestlers themselves appeared in the live action segments of the show, but due to their busy travel schedules, they did not provide the voices for their animated counterparts.
Hulk Hogan was voiced by Brad Garrett.
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NancyF said on July 25, 2025 at 8:03 pm
Years ago I went to a Martin Cruz Smith reading at a bookstore here in Oakland. “Polar Star” had recently been published, and during the Q&A someone asked how he’d researched the story. He told us that he’d had an assignment — I think it was from the Times Magazine — to write a factual piece about life aboard a Soviet factory ship. A few days into the voyage, though, something went awry with U.S.-Soviet relations and he was booted off the ship. “I didn’t have enough material to write the magazine piece,” he said, “but I’d seen and heard more than enough to write a novel.”
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Suzanne said on July 25, 2025 at 9:50 pm
Did any of you get the nice Medicare email from Dr Oz, encouraging a healthy lifestyle? It begins: “I’m Dr. Mehmet Oz, head of the Medicare program, and I’m excited to introduce my new email series to help you stay healthy. As a doctor, I believe simple daily habits, like smart food choices and regular exercise, can help keep you healthier for longer and prevent future health problems.”
And it goes on from there.
Funny when Michelle Obama promoted healthy eating, she was accused of being a tool of Satan. Now, healthy eating and supplements will cure everything because Dr Oz and Brainworm Booby say so and aren’t they wonderful?
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Mark P said on July 26, 2025 at 1:53 am
Alex, I have completely given up on the legacy networks’ news. I think you can get better coverage of US news from the BBC.
Suzanne, I got the Oz email. Will anyone ever again trust anything the federal government says? The f’in MAGAts distrust government because they are stupid and have been told to, but now even the rational among us have to join them.
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