Stuart M. Kaminsky
Born: September 29, 1934
Died: October 9, 2009
At the Edgar Awards Dinner held on My 11, 1989, Stuart Kamisky’s novel A Cold Red Sunrise won the Edgar for Best Novel. Adfter reading about the book winning the Edgar I found it and read it in May of that year. It was the fourth novel in the series. I quickly went out and read the 3rd, and 1st books. FRom some reason it took until 1992 to read book #2. (Could it have been that my daughter was born in November of 1990?). Lottle did I now then that I would still be reading the adventures of Porfiry Rostnikov for the next 21 years.( I still miss him and his crew!)
Over the course of his career t his career 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.[
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.
Porfiry 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.”
Other Series From Stuart Kaminsky
In addition to the Rostnikov series Kaminksy wrote three other book series they include:
Toby Peters Mysteries – Peters was a private detective in 1940s Hollywood The only Toby Peter’s mystery i have read is Bet Your Life. You Bet Your Life features, you guessed it, Groucho Marx!
The third series featured Abe Lieberman a veteran Chicago police officer. This series was written between 1990-200).
Finally, the fourth series featured a Sarasota, Florida, process server named Lew Fonesc. It was written between 1999 and 2009.
For whatever reason I never read books from either series. Can you say too many books, too litttle time! Here are the books I have read<<<<<<
Porfiry Rostnikov Novels
| Title | Series/No. | Date Published | Date Read | Notes |
| Death of a Dissident ) | (Porfiry Rostnikov, #1 | 1989 | 1989/09/05 | |
| Black Knight in Red Square | (Porfiry Rostnikov, #2) | 1989 | 1992 | |
| Red Chameleon (Porfiry Rostnikov, #3) | Stuart M. Kaminsky | 1989 | 1989/07/04 | |
| A Fine Red Rain | (Porfiry Rostnikov, #4) | 1988 | 1989/06/17 | |
| A Cold Red Sunrise | (Porfiry Rostnikov, #5) | 1989 | 1989/04/20 | |
| The Man Who Walked Like a Bear | (Porfiry Rostnikov #6) | 1991 | 1990/07/10 | |
| Rostnikov’s Vacation | ( Porfiry Rostnikov #7) | 1992 | 1991/10/27 | |
| Death of a Russian Priest | (Porfiry Rostnikov, #8) | 1993 | 1992/10/01 | |
| Hard Currency | (Porfiry Rostnikovv #9) | 1995 | Not Read | at BCLS |
| Blood and Rubles | (Porfiry Rostnikovv #10) | 1996 | Not Read | |
| Tarnished Icons | (Porfiry Rostnikovv #11) | 1997 | Not Read | |
| The Dog Who Bit a Policeman | (Porfiry Rostnikov, #12) | 1998 | 1998/10/24 | |
| Fall of a Cosmonaut | (Porfiry Rostnikov, #13) | 2000 | 2001/08/11 | |
| Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express | (Porfiry Rostnikov, #14) | 2001 | 2002/02/21 | |
| People Who Walk in Darkness | (Porfiry Rostnikov, #15) | 2008 | 2008/08/25 | |
| A Whisper to the Living | (Porfiry Rostnikov, #16) | 2010 | 2010/02/13 | Review |
Toby Peters Novels
| You Bet Your Life | (Toby Peters, #3) | 1990 | 1990/07/22 |
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