A great line from Martin Cruz Smith

Not liking Red Square quite as much as Polar Star but I do like it. I don't know how Smith learned so much about the Soviet Union. Apparently he studied journalism at UPenn and now lives in California.

Here is a great line about Renko's visit to Berlin where he hadn't been since the wall came down (the official date for the wall coming down is 11/9/89):

"The advantage of the Soviet model was that construction and upkeep were kept to a minimum, so Soviet memories tended to be excellent."


Renko is like the East German protesters prior to the fall of the wall shouting "Wir bleiben hier" ("We're not leaving.") 


In other random news, Charles Dickens died when he was only 58. And apparently, Barnaby Rudge is not a page-turner per the NY Review of Books.