Winter was what Muscovites lived for. Winter kneedeep in snow that softened the city, flowed from golden dome to golden dome, resculpted statues and transformed park paths into skating trails. Snow that sometimes fell as a lacy haze, sometimes thick as down. Snow that made sedans of the rich and powerful crawl behind snowplows. Snow that folded and unfolded, teasing the eye with glimpses of an illuminated globe above the Central Telegraph Office, Apollo's chariot leaving the Bolshoi, a sturgeon sketched in neon at a food emporium. Women shopped amid the gusts, gliding in long fur coats.Children dragged sleds and snowboards, while Lenin lay in his mausoleum, deaf to correction, wrapped in snow.

And, in Arkady's experience, when the snow melted, bodies would be discovered. In Moscow that was spring.

INVESTIGATOR ARKADY RENKO the pariah of the Moscow prosecutor's office, has been assigned the thankless job of investigating a new phenomenon:late-night subway riders report seeing the ghost of Joseph Stalin on the platform of the Chistye Prudy Metro station. The illusion seems part political hocus-pocus and also part wishful thinking, for among many Russians Stalin is again popular; the bloody dictator can boast a two-to-one approval rating. Decidedly better than that of Renko,whose lover, Eva, has left him for Detective Nikolai Isakov, a charismatic veteran of the civil war in Chechnya, a hero of the far right and, Renko suspects, a killer for hire. The cases entwine, and Renko's quests become a personal inquiry fueled by jealousy.

The investigation leads to the fields of Tver outside of Moscow, where once a million soldiers fought. There, amidst the detritus, Renko must confront the ghost of his own father,a favorite general of Stalin's. In these barren fields, patriots and shady entrepreneurs--the Red Diggers and Black Diggers--collect the bones, weapons and personal effects of slain World War II soldiers, and find that even among the dead there are surprises.

Stalin's Ghost is replete with Martin Cruz Smith's trademark wit, dark humor and action.In this tale ofArkady Renko, Smith has again fashioned an unforgettable character as cynical as Philip Marlowe, but with the heart of a Chekhovian Everyman. The reader is treated to an unparalleled thriller woven with a depth of humanity found in the finest literature.