Who Wrote This Unusual Series?

For the life of me, I can't remember the name of either the author
or the central character, but the series was unusual enough to be
memorable to most persons who have recently read it:

The main character is a secret policeman in an unnamed ultra-
Stalinist eastern European country (modeled on Romania and
Albania) in the late '40s and early '50s. He is assigned to crimes
with political overtones or motives - but nothing, of course, turns
out to be what it seems.

It's been a few years since I've read these and I hope if I can
find someone who remembers the author I can find out if there
have been more books in the series that I've missed.

Thanks for any help!

Perplexed wrote:
> For the life of me, I can't remember the name of either the author
> or the central character, but the series was unusual enough to be
> memorable to most persons who have recently read it:
>
> The main character is a secret policeman in an unnamed ultra-
> Stalinist eastern European country (modeled on Romania and
> Albania) in the late '40s and early '50s. He is assigned to crimes
> with political overtones or motives - but nothing, of course, turns
> out to be what it seems.
>
> It's been a few years since I've read these and I hope if I can
> find someone who remembers the author I can find out if there
> have been more books in the series that I've missed.
>
> Thanks for any help!
>
>
It sounds like the Arkady Renko series of novels by Martin
Cruz Smith, the first of which was "Gorky Park". But Renko
is a civilian policeman, not a secret policeman. The rest
of what you say fits. The setting is Moscow, in the
U.S.S.R. days.


Francis A. Miniter