Polar Star (novel)

infobox Book |
name = Polar Star
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Martin Cruz Smith
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series = Arkady Renko # 2
genre = Crime novel
publisher = Random House & Ballantine Books
release_date = 1989
media_type = Print (Hardcover, Paperback)
pages = 384pp (paperback edition)
isbn = ISBN 0-345-36765-0
preceded_by = Gorky Park
followed_by = Red Square

"Polar Star" is a 1989 crime novel by Martin Cruz Smith, set in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. It is a sequel to "Gorky Park" and features former militsiya investigator Arkady Renko.

After uncovering corruption in high places and being exposed to capitalist influences, Renko is dismissed from his job as a Moscow police investigator and is forced to accept a variety of menial jobs in remote parts of the Soviet Union. Finally, he finds himself gutting fish on a factory ship in the Bering Sea, in part to hide from the KGB, who have tried to kill him because of his role in exposing high-level corruption in "Gorky Park". The Soviet factory ship is part of a US-Soviet joint venture, with the American fishing vessels catching the fish and turning the catch over to the Soviets for processing (gutting, cleaning, and freezing).

While going to sea is a way to remain out of reach of the KGB for Renko, the other crew members have signed up with the prospect of a one day stop at the United States fisheries port of Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands, with an extra salary allowance in dollars to let them purchase Western goods such as VCRs and cassette tapes.

Then the body of a murdered female crew member is pulled up in the vessel's nets, and Renko reluctantly agrees to investigate after the ship's "zampolit" gives him no choice. Renko's obstinate insistence on learning the truth behind her death, rather than allowing her murder to be covered up as a suicide, results in threats by the "zampolit" to block the visit to the United States, which in turn causes the workers to threaten Renko.