Death of a Dissident

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. Then there's the famous dissident who's been murdered right before his trial. Rostnikov is charged with finding the killer, but the arrest had better be politically convenient, acceptable to the KGB. 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.