Article: Renko's Russia returns Tough cop struggles as 'Gorky Park' author wraps history lessons in suspense.(Spotlight)

Byline: Peter Mergendahl, Special to the Rocky

In 1981, a lifetime ago for many, a jowl-faced man and former intimate of Josef Stalin named Leonid Brezhnev was president of one of the two most powerful countries on the planet. Ronald Reagan was in the first year of his presidency, and the Cold War had again flared to frightening heights.

It was also the year that a struggling author put out the book that would make his name and, in some ways, change a genre of fiction.

Gorky Park, by Martin Cruz Smith, cost $8.95 in hardcover then, and its hero was a young Russian policeman named Arkady Renko. It wasn't surprising that this cop was looking into ...

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