Lost cities.

Wolves Eat Dogs By Martin Cruz Smith Simon & Schuster US$25.95

In his first novel, GorkyPark, Martin Cruz Smith revealed the hidden underbelly of the Soviet Union to the Western world through the eyes of investigator Arkady Renko. Smith's newest work, based in the Ukraine, hit the shelves just as the contested Ukrainian presidential elections made global headlines, a race during which pro-Western opposition candidate Viktor Yuschenko--now president--suffered a mysterious poisoning that left his face horribly disfigured. In his novel, Smith shows us a side of Ukraine that is equally appalling as he again follows in Renko's footsteps, this time to Chernobyl, site of the the world's worst nuclear accident, in 1986.

Over two days in April, the plant in the former Soviet Union north of Kiev experienced a series of missteps during tests of one of the reactors. Small problems snowballed and the reactor finally spun out of control, exploding with such force it blew off a steel-and-concrete safety lid. Thirty people died immediately, tens of thousands suffered from radiation exposure, and hundreds of thousands of people were eventually resettled. Today, the area is a grim ghost town of abandoned, Soviet-style block buildings overgrown with trees. Chernobyl cost billions and was later considered one of the final blows to the Soviet economy--along with other historical factors--and the beginning of the end of the communist Russian empire.

In the novel, Benko is assigned to investigate the death of Russian magnate Pasha Ivanov, who dies after falling from a height of 11 stories. During the investigation, Renko learns that his superiors have determined the death a suicide; they order the investigation closed. Renko, however, feels that the official version doesn't square with reality and decides to continue the probe on his own.

A clue--a saltshaker with high levels of radiation in Ivanov's apartment--leads the detective to the Ukrainian towns of Chernobyl and Pripyat, the latter of which was a community developed for the engineers, technicians and scientists that built the enormous nuclear reactors in the region. Eighteen years later, Pripyat is a ghost town, home to a few scientists and a detachment of soldiers. A few locals ramble about--those who have decided to stay because they could never adapt to living far from their place of birth. Among them, Renko starts down the path that leads him to the truth.

Soon enough, the body of the vice president of NoviRus, the company once led by Ivanov, is found headless in the town cemetery, mangled by wolves. The authorities give Renko the green light to reopen the case. Renko drives around the area, staying clear of bloodthirsty wolves while measuring radioactivity levels, aware that one false step could be fatal. He knows that the pieces of the puzzle he needs are locked away in the heads of the elderly peasants who stayed in Chernobyl, living life in step with centuries-old customs and defying the deadly radiation all around them.

Cruz Smith spends much of his time detailing the legacy of corruption and inefficiency left by the old Soviet system, whose remnants now stand accused of poisoning Yuschenko. Beyond the immediate events, however, the author deserves praise for rekindling public awareness of the long-term fallout of the Chernobyl catastrophe.

It was once thought that the peaceful use of nuclear energy would serve as a substitute to fossil fuels. Although possible, it is clear that the use of nuclear power poses great risk: Carelessness can lead to a repeat of the Ukrainian disaster, in which nearly 30,000 people died and more than 10 million were affected. Through this book, the author's message is that scientific progress, while admirable, can become a nightmare.