One Dead Commissar
At an icebound naval weather station in far Siberia, the young daughter of an exiled dies under suspicious circumstances. The high-ranking Commissar sent to investigate the mystery suffers a similar fate: he is murdered by an icicle thrust into his skull.
One Live Cop
Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov is dispatched to solve the Commissar's murder, with one caveat: he is not to investigate the girl's death. Even if all the clues tell him that the two cases are linked.
One Cold Killer
In a single, fateful day, Rostnikov will hear two confessions, watch someone die, conspire against the government, and nearly meet his own death. All under the watchful eye of the KGB -- and someone much closer and infinitely more terrifying.
From Publishers Weekly
The fifth novel in the Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov series offers another example of Kaminsky's ( A Fine Red Rain ) ability to spin a gripping, well-paced narrative peopled with vivid characters. Here the maverick Rostnikov, demoted after numerous battles with the KGB, is assigned to the case of Commissar Illya Rutkin, who was killed in Siberia while investigating the death of dissident Lev Samsonov's daughter, Karla. Inspector Emil Karpo, who accompanies the 54-year-old weightlifting policeman to the small town of Tumsk, has been asked by the KGB to report on his superior. Comrade Sokolov goes along, too, ostensibly to learn procedures, though Rostnikov knows his methods are under scrutiny. A realist and keen observer of humanity, Rostnikov deals shrewdly with the suspects in Rutkin's slaying: Lev Samsonov and his wife, Ludmilla; custodians Liana and Sergei Mirasnikov; Dimitri Galich, a former priest; and militarist General Krasnikov. As Rostnikov unravels the baffling crime, the clues point to loyalty and love as the motives for murder. The denouement is stunning and again proves Rostnikov is in a class by himself.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"As always, Kaminsky provides a colorful, tightly written mystery (he doesn't waste a word) filled with twists, countertwists and a surprise ending that is plausible and clever."
Chicago Tribune