Three Stations: 2 (Arkady Renko) - Tapa blanda

As a train pulls into Yaroslav Station, Moscow, a teenage girl - Maya - wakes to an unimaginable horror. Her baby has been taken . . . Increasingly disillusioned with the workings of Moscow's Prosecution Service, Arkady Renko is teetering on the brink of resignation when he becomes drawn into a strange new case. A prostitute has been found dead in a trailer in Three Stations - a dark, notorious part of the city - without a mark on her. Soon Renko will find that the girl is linked to the extravagant Club Nijinsky and, as he is drawn into the extraordinary world of Moscow's super-rich, that nothing is quite as it seems. Meanwhile, Maya also wanders Three Stations, searching for her baby. Her only ally is a young man, Zhenya - Renko's own troubled ward - who is drawn to her cause and will guide her through Moscow's dark underbelly. But neither Zhenya nor Renko realize that Maya herself is being hunted. And those seeking her will stop at nothing to silence her . . .

Martin Cruz Smith's novels include Gorky Park, Stallion Gate , Polar Star, Red Square, Rose, Havana Bay and Tokyo Station. A recipient of the CWA Gold Dagger for fiction in the UK, he is also two-time winner of the Hammett Prize in the United States. He lives in northern California.