Books in series
#1
Death of a Dissident
1981
Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov has a lot on his plate. His superiors in the Moscow police force are suspicious of his Jewish wife, the black-market copies of his beloved Ed McBain 87th Precinct novels are getting tough to find, and his dreams of becoming a competitive weight-lifter are receding at a rapid clip. And then there's the famous dissident who's been murdered right before his trial—a trial intended to showcase the wonders of the Soviet judicial system. Rostnikov is charged with finding the killer, but the arrest had better be politically convenient, acceptable to the KGB. And things only get trickier when the killer strikes again, displaying a fondness for weapons—a hammer, a sickle, a vodka bottle—with a particularly Russian resonance. Clearly, he's making a statement, but what exactly is he saying? And can Rostnikov stop him before he says it again?
#2
Black Knight in Red Square
1984
The Moscow Film Festival may lack Cannes' boats, bikinis, and gentle breezes, but it has nevertheless attracted scores of international actors, directors, and deal-makers. For some, the festival represents Moscow's re-emergence as a world-class city. But for a gang of zealots headed by a beautiful brunette, the festival represents a target, and they have been attacking the film people with frightening efficiency. Desperate to avoid embarrassment, the Kremlin is trying to cover up the killings. And desperate to stop the killers, the KGB has put Inspector Rostnikov on the case.
#3
Red Chameleon
1985
A Hunter
The violent and inexplicable murder of an old man in his bathtub and the theft of a worthless candlestick send Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov on a hunt into the past. But as his search narrows toward one feared and elusive man, the trail winds back to the most unexpected and dangerous place for Rostnikov.
A Spy
A ring of car thieves with a taste for expensive vehicles is at large in Moscow’s streets. Boyish undercover officer Sasha Tkach must pose as a young man of privilege in order to find and entrap them. But the striking female mastermind proves more cunning and deadly than Sasha has bargained for.
A Target
High above the gray city, a sniper is taking aim at police officers. Obsessed m humorless detective Emil Karpo takes the assignment to heart and wages a methodical, one-man crusade—using himself as a decoy.
#4
A Fine Red Rain
1987
Moscow's top cops are on the case as multiple murders sweep the city. There's Rostnikov, once a hero in the great war against Hitler, recently demoted after clashing with the KGB. There's young Sasha, who looks more like a kid than a cop. And there's Karpo, intelligent and determined, feared by criminals. Together, they would track down the killers—but what if their search led into forbidden areas, into the Kremlin itself?
#5
A Cold Red Sunrise
1988
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.
#6
The Man Who Walked Like a Bear
1990
Crimes
A naked bearlike man bursts into Rostnikov’s wife’s hospital room with a shocking story about a devil invading his shoe factory. Intrigued, Rostnikov investigates and plunges into a mysterious criminal scene of such depth that the chief inspector stoops to committing a crime of his own.
Coincidences
Meanwhile, a frantic woman tells headquarters of her own son’s imminent felony against the politburo....A Moscow bus and its driver mysteriously vanish....A man is found brutally killed....And an assassin arrives for work in Moscow.
Catastrophes
When coincidences turn into connections, Rostnikov, along with Karpo and Tkach, find themselves enmeshed in a catastrophic conspiracy, as they follow a series of serpentine clues, like a lit fuse that winds its way to a time bomb called the KGB
#7
Rostnikov's Vacation
1991
Inspector Rostnikov is vacationing by the seashore, tending to his recuperating wife and reading American crime novels, when a vacationing fellow officer meets with a mysterious demise. Suddenly, Rostnikov is back at work . . . and on the trail of a murderer whose footsteps may lead straight to the heart of the Kremlin.
#8
Death of a Russian Priest
1992
When Inspector Rostnikov arrives in the town of Arkush with Emil Karpo, the policeman nicknamed “the Vampire”, he finds a community stunned by the murder of the outspoken Father Merhum. But it is the priest's cryptic last words that make Rostnikov wonder if this was indeed a political assassination or a murder with a motive closer to home.
Meanwhile, in Moscow, Rostnikov's other associates are deep into the hunt for an Arab girl everyone wants but no one can find. Handsome Sasha Tkach and his new partner, Elena Timofeyeva, plunge into the seedy world of Moscow night life, following the cold trail of the missing girl and the bloody tracks of a cunning killer....
#9
Hard Currency
1995
When a former Russian advisor stands accused of murdering a female citizen in Cuba, Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov is dispatched to the former Soviet Unions one-time ally on a criminal investigation-cum-diplomatic mission. With a watchful KGB agent on his tail Rostnikov must grapple with his cunning Cuban counterpart as well as a perplexing murder scenario, to save face for his mother country.
Back in Russia a spate of grisly sexual-mutilation murders announces the return of a notorious serial killer to the streets of Moscow\_ Relentless, obsessive Inspector Emil Karpo — "the Vampire" — leads the manhunt for the person whose mundane appearance hides the tormented, predatory soul of madman.
With little more than their principles and theft shaken patriotism to guide them, Rostnikov and his driven detectives struggle to uphold the law—even as the entire globe rumbles with change....
#10
Blood and Rubles
1996
Crime in post-communist Russia has only gotten worse: rubles are scarce, blood, plentiful. In the eyes of Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov and his metropolitan police team, newfound democracy has unleashed the desperation that pushes people over the edge, and a trio of nasty cases confirms their worst fears.
Deputy Inspector Sasha Tkach must find the murderous thieves who have terrorized an impoverished neighborhood. Policewoman Elena Timofeyeva joins the tax police in a raid on a house filled with priceless Czarist treasures—which disappear the following day without a trace. And relentless Inspector Emil Karpo will not rest until he finds the Mafia beasts who killed the only woman he has ever loved in a bloody drive-by shooting—and Karpo intends to punish them his way...
"Deeply absorbing, full of character nuance and irony . . . Kaminsky's laconic tone and colorful prose bring [Moscow] and its denizens to life."
—The Sunday Herald
"Kaminsky excels each time he enters the harshness of post-Cold War Russia."
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
#11
Tarnished Icons
1997
"Rostnikov is quite simply the best cop to come out of the Soviet Union since Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko in Gorky Park."
—San Francisco Examiner
In the topsy-turvy world of post-communist Russia, Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov's work is never done. Three congregants from a local synagogue, gunned down in the night, are the latest victims in the seemingly systematic execution of Jews in Moscow. But the shocking identity of one of the murdered men leads Rostnikov to suspect that, rather than simple intolerance, a more calculated motive lies behind the slaughter.
Meanwhile, the city's women are under siege by The Shy One—a knife-wielding rapist who strikes without being seen. And as the last vestiges of order spin wildly out of control, a rabid antinuclear crusader plans to send a message to the New Russia via an "explosive" special delivery. It's up to Rostnikov and his fellow cops to stop the madness before it stops Russia—for good...
"Stuart Kaminsky's Rostnikov novels are among the best mysteries being written."
—The San Diego Union
#12
The Dog Who Bit a Policeman
1998
As Russian mafia members begin to be the targets of a series of murders, Inspector Rostnikov investigates, but two undercover agents are closer to the truth as they try to determine who is behind an illegal dog fighting ring in Moscow
#13
Fall of a Cosmonaut
2000
More persistent than fearless, Chief Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov makes his way through a ferocious storm, whose record breaking winds and rain push an iron bench along the street, to get inside the Petrovka headquarters where three peculiar investigations await him.Cosmonaut Tsimion Vladovka's last words on Mir's recorders were instructions to contact rostnikov in case something went wrong with the mission. Vladovka is missing, and his fellow Mir cosmonauts are turning up dead.
Film director Yuri Kriskov is in fear of his life, threatened by the same chess-crazed lunatic who stole the only extant footage of his grand documentary on Tolstoy.
And two detectives enter the strange world of paranormal research to discover who murdered a leading scientist working on psychic phenomena during dream states...
#14
Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express
2001
Penzler Pick, December 2001: This is a compulsively readable tour de force that keeps more balls in the air than a pitching machine. On top of that, in this 14th novel featuring the one-legged Moscow cop Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, Stuart Kaminsky once again catapults us straight from our armchairs into the mindset of modern Russia in all its perverse dysfunctions. Kaminsky must have had fun cooking up the plotlines, which ingeniously plunder the storage bins of mystery history. There's everything from a Jane the Ripper to homages to train-bound thrillers like The Lady Vanishes, North by Northwest, and the more obvious Murder on the Orient Express. At the same time, there's the conscious, skillfully presented element of social realism, an aspect that never intruded into the action of any of those tales. Kaminsky is wonderfully artful at conveying the pervasive cynicism that comes with the territory at all strata of existence in the former Soviet Union, and he does it without ever being repetitious. At an organic level, it seeps into and informs every level of the mystery as it unfolds.
One must marvel at the manipulations of the political and legal systems engaged in by Chief Inspector Rostnikov and his dedicated colleagues as they endeavor to deliver the semblance of a not-always-welcome law and order. To top it off, there are some terrific set-piece scenes, such as when the policeman Zelach reveals his unexpected familiarity with heavy-metal arcana as he and his partner interrogate some punks about a missing pal.
Kaminsky won the Edgar Allan Poe award in 1989 for the Rostnikov mystery A Cold Red Sunrise. Reading Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express, it's not hard to understand why, only difficult to know how he keeps the series' quality so high. —Otto Penzler
#15
People Who Walk in Darkness
2008
In People Who Walk in Darkness, Rostnikov travels to Siberia to investigate a murder at a diamond mine, where he discovers an old secret…and an even older personal problem. His compatriots head to Kiev on a trail of smuggled diamonds and kidnapped guest workers, and what they discover leads them to a vast conspiracy that not only has international repercussions but threatens them on a very personal level.
#16
A Whisper to the Living
2009
A Whisper to the Living continues the adventures (some would say trials and tribulations) of Inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, an honest policeman in a very dishonest post-Soviet Union. Rostnikov is one of the most engaging and relevant characters in crime fiction, a sharp and caring policeman as well as the perfect tour guide to a changing Russia.
Rostnikov and his team are searching for a serial killer who has claimed at least 40 victims. And then there is the problem of protecting a visiting British journalist who is working on a story about a Moscow prostitution ring…and in doing so Rostnikov and his team uncover a chain of murders that lead to a source too high to be held accountable if the police want to keep their jobs
Or their lives.
Author
Stuart M. Kaminsky
Author · 68 books
Stuart M. Kaminsky wrote 50 published novels, 5 biographies, 4 textbooks and 35 short stories. He also has screenwriting credits on four produced films including ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, ENEMY TERRITORY, A WOMAN IN THE WIND and HIDDEN FEARS. He was a past president of the Mystery Writers of America and was nominated for six prestigious Edgar Allen Poe Awards including one for his short story “Snow” in 1999. He won an Edgar for his novel A COLD RED SUNRISE, which was also awarded the Prix De Roman D’Aventure of France. He was nominated for both a Shamus Award and a McCavity Readers Choice Award. Kaminsky wrote several popular series including those featuring Lew Fonesca, Abraham Lieberman, Inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, and Toby Peters. He also wrote two original "Rockford Files " novels. He was the 50th annual recipient of the Grandmaster 2006 for Lifetime Achievement from the Mystery Writers of America. Received the Shamus Award, "The Eye" (Lifetime achievement award) in 2007. His nonfiction books including BASIC FILMMAKING, WRITING FOR TELEVISION, AMERICAN FILM GENRES, and biographies of GARY COOPER, CLINT EASTWOOD, JOHN HUSTON and DON SIEGEL. BEHIND THE MYSTERY was published by Hot House Press in 2005 and nominated by Mystery Writers of America for Best Critical/Biographical book in 2006. Kaminsky held a B.S. in Journalism and an M.A. in English from The University of Illinois and a Ph.D. in Speech from Northwestern University where he taught for 16 years before becoming a Professor at Florida State. where he headed the Graduate Conservatory in Film and Television Production. He left Florida State in 1994 to pursue full-time writing. Kaminsky and his wife, Enid Perll, moved to St. Louis, Missouri in March 2009 to await a liver transplant to treat the hepatitis he contracted as an army medic in the late 1950s in France. He suffered a stroke two days after their arrival in St. Louis, which made him ineligible for a transplant. He died on October 9, 2009.
