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Title: chernobyl travalogue
Review: I think this is the best work that Smith has done. It is difficult to classify. The first 1/3 is a very good thriller. Then we get to the aftermath of Chernobyl and everything changes. The characters, landscape, and reflections on the Chernobyl disaster dominate the book, take it above the whodunit level in my view. The whodunit drives the plot, the attempts on Renko's life etc. but after a while who cares who killed Ivanov? At the end Smith cleans up the loose ends in a workmanlike fashion but Chernobyl is what stays long after the book is closed.As usual the quality of Smith's writing is very good, "Bobby Hoffman was a mollusk without its shell, a tender American morsel on the Russian ocean floor.", "To vodka, the first line of radiation defense." "...the pickles crisp and sour, with perhaps a hint of strontium." and so on.I can see where some readers, expecting a thriller, were dissapointed, I was not. 4 stars rather than 5 because it is difficult to classify by genre.
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