Gorky Park

On a cold winter day in Moscow, two dead John Does and one dead Jane Doe are found under the snow and ice in Gorky Park, they virtually unidentifiable because whoever killed them had surgically removed their faces and fingertips. Chief Investigator Arkady Renko of the Soviet militsiya leads the murder investigation, despite he more than willing to forgo it as for various reasons he believes the murders reek of KGB involvement, especially that of a Major Pribluda, with who he has had less than official violent run-ins before. If KGB is involved, Arkady believes his life too could be in danger if he uncovers the specifics. Beyond the extreme measures Arkady goes to identify the three, he gets his first connection to a live person in the form of Irina Asanova, a young woman who works as a seamstress on a movie crew and who seems to abhor the lot in which the Soviet life has left her. Her ice skates, which she reported missing, were found on the Jane Doe. He also finds it more than coincidental when he later encounters Irina at a fancy social gathering at the home of Iamskoy, the lead counsel for the case, he who wants Arkady on the job as the best person to uncover what's going on, especially if the KGB is involved. Iamskoy does not believe the KGB should be above the law. At the party, Irina is on the arms of an older wealthy American businessman named Jack Osborne, a furrier who is often in the Soviet Union as the only place where sable pelts can be obtained globally. Further in the course of his investigation, Arkady continually encounters who he will eventually learn is William Kirwill, a New York City police detective on the search for his missing American brother, James Kirwill, the eventual assumption being that James is one of the John Does. The closer Arkady gets to the truth, the more his life is indeed in danger as he has nowhere to hide within the Soviet system, and no means of escape, which it seems so many people involved are trying to do.