Stuart M. Kaminsky
Born: September 29, 1934
Died: October 9, 2009
From 1987 to 2002 , I read twelve of the adventures of inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov his police squad and family. The stories were always great, but the characters that came to life in the pages of the books were even better. It all started Porfiry Rostnikov one of my all-time characters. He was…
…., a veteran Moscow police inspector with a knack for navigating the labyrinths of Soviet bureaucracy. A bruising bear of a man, whose love of weightlifting and American pizza has left him as squat and powerful as a . 38 bullet, Rostnikov may be the toughest cop in Moscow.
Oh, and he also loved to rfead Ed McBain novels. My other favorite character in the series was Inspector Emil Karpo.
Inspector Emil Karpo, known as “the Vampire,” is cold and forbidding, almost robotic in his behavior. He has always supported Communism and still does, even after the change in government in Russia after the breakdown of the Soviet Union. As the series progresses, he becomes more human and thus a more interesting character.
….“Karpo, as always, was dressed in black. His leather coat was black. Even his scarf and fur hat were black. Rostnikov thought that clothes reflected the people who wore them. Rostnikov himself dressed neatly, conservatively, in old comfortable suits and ties Sarah had bought for him at market stalls. As for Karpo’s choice of black, Rostnikov was not given to simple judgment. He himself was rather fond of black, which was either the absence of color or the totality of color. There was a statement in black, he thought. Black said, You cannot penetrate my being by looking at my exterior. I am a dark cipher.”
The only Toby Peter’s mystery i have read is Bet Your Life Tobuy Petersa private detective in 1940s Hollywood detective andn Bet Your Life features, you guessed it, Groucho Marx!
veteran Chicago police officer Abe Lieberman (1990-2007). There is also a fourth series featuring a Sarasota, Florida, process server named Lew Fonesca (1999-2009).
Kaminsky’s Inspector Rostnikov novel A Cold Red Sunrise received the 1989 Edgar Award for Best Novel. He earned six other Edgar nominations, most recently for the 2005 non-fiction book Behind the Mystery: Top Mystery Writers Interviewed, which was also nominated for an Anthony Award, a Macavity Award, and an Agatha Award. In 2006 Kaminsky received the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America.[
Stuart Kaninsky Books I’ve Read
Porfiry Rostnikov
Death of a Dissident (Porfiry Rostnikov, #1)
Black Knight in Red Square (Porfiry Rostnikov, #2)
Red Chameleon (Porfiry Rostnikov, #3)
A Fine Red Rain (Porfiry Rostnikov, #4)
A Cold Red Sunrise (Porfiry Rostnikov, #5)
The Man Who Walked like a Bear (Porfiry Rostnikov #6)
Rostnikov’s Vacation (An Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov #7)
Death of a Russian Priest (Porfiry Rostnikov, #8)
The Dog Who Bit a Policeman (Porfiry Rostnikov, #12)
Fall of a Cosmonaut (Porfiry Rostnikov, #13)
Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express (Porfiry Rostnikov, #14)
People Who Walk in Darkness (Porfiry Rostnikov, #15)
After 2010
A Whisper to the Living (Porfiry Rostnikov, #16)
Books on Stuart Kaminsky TBR Pile
Hard Currency (Porfiry Rostnikove #9)
Blood and Rubles (Rostnikov #10)
Tarnished Icons (Rostnihov #11)
Toby Peters
Bet Your Life (Toby Peters, #3)
