Gypsy in Amber and Canto for a Gypsy, two earlier thrillers by Martin Cruz Smith, demonstrated several comparatively rare virtues of this genre, particularly feeling for unusual milieus…. Both were written with grace and humor and without gratuitous violence or sadism. Nonetheless, all that the experienced consumer of this literature could reasonably have expected was a superior series, featuring the exploits of Police Sergeant Isadore. In the best of such series, the curve of inspiration is downward because the hero is a stable character, an old but predictable friend like Nero Wolfe, Ellery Queen, or the even more insufferable Lord Peter Wimsey. All parties—author, hero, readers, even villains—show signs of weariness as routine adventure succeeds routine adventure. The proprietor of the series turns into a rentier and the readers into addicts.

Gorky Park is a pleasant, even a stunning surprise, for its author has leaped several...