Wolves Eat Dogs

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Wolves Eat Dogs
Author	Martin Cruz Smith
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Arkady Renko # 5
Genre(s)	Crime novel
Publisher	Simon & Schuster, Macmillan
Publication date	2004
Media type	Print (Hardcover, Paperback)
Pages	352pp (hardback edition)
ISBN	ISBN 0-684-87254-4
Preceded by	Havana Bay
Followed by	Stalin's Ghost

Wolves eat Dogs is a crime novel by Martin Cruz Smith, set in Russia and Ukraine in the year 1996. It is the fifth novel to feature Investigator Arkady Renko.

Russia has changed from a Communist to capitalist state, and the Ukraine has seceded from the former Soviet Union. Renko is investigating the apparent suicide of one of the most powerful businessmen in Russia. An anomaly is a large mound of salt in the victim's wardrobe. Despite powerful people attempting to halt Renko's investigation, he continues, and as a result is sent away to Ukraine to look into a related murder.

Much of the story is set in the "dead zone", the evacuated and contaminated area around the site of the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine. Although his superior officer claims that Renko, being of Ukrainian origin, was the natural choice for being dispatched to solve the case since he knows the language and the country, the real reason is (as in the previous novels) Renko's refusal to drop his investigation until he has found the reason for the businessman's apparent suicide and a subsequent murder.