Hard Currency: Stuart Kaminsky

Hard Currency (1992) by Stuart Kaminsky is the 9th book in a series featuring Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov, a police investigator in Moscow, and the team that he works with. When the series started, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was still in existence. This book, published in 1992, and the previous one, Death of a Russian Priest (reviewed here) address the changes in Russia following the dissolution of the USSR, and specifically how this affects this police team.

This book is especially interesting because Rostnikov and one of his staff, Inspector Elena Timofeyeva, go to Cuba to investigate a murder. Or, in reality, the goal of their trip is to find that the Russian citizen accused of the murder is in fact the murderer. To rubber stamp what has already been decided both in Cuba and Russia. This, of course, does not sit well with Rostnikov.  And the situation gets more complicated once they are in Cuba.

Meanwhile, there are two other investigations going on in Moscow, carried out by the remainder of Rostnikov's team: Emil Karpo, a very scary, very serious man nicknamed the Vampire; and Sasha Tkach, a younger member of the team. One case is related to the death of a visiting foreign minister from Kazakhstan. The other is a very difficult case involving a serial killer. At this time in Russian history, those in power do not want to admit the possibility that such a criminal exists in their country. Thus, for a long time, there were no attempts to tie the crimes together, which could have helped solve the crime. By the time all the data is available, it is hard to find any pattern in the killings.

I find these books most enjoyable for the development of the characters. The cases are interesting, but are not as compelling for me as the relationships and the setting. Secondary characters are also well defined.

In this series, we get a picture of the backgrounds of all of these characters without their personal lives overpowering the plot. I have read all the books in this series to this point, and I plan to read the rest in order. However, as far as this book goes, it could be read as a standalone.  The background provided is enough to prevent any confusion in following the characters and their relationships.

I cannot speak from firsthand knowledge about how accurate the depiction of either Russia or Cuba at this is, but this is what Ed McBain had to say about the book: "Kaminsky gets Russia right, and Cuba right, but best of all he gets his superb cop Rostnikov altogether right yet another time. Bravo!"

Kaminsky was a very prolific writer. He is known for several long-running series of mystery novels and other non-fiction titles and stand-alone novels. My earlier post featuring two of his books has some more information on his other series.

You can see a list of his novels at Stop, You're Killing Me!

There is a brief bio at Mysterious Press.