Need a Book Recommendation

I finally finished Stalin’s Ghost, and now I’m in mourning.  I’m all caught up on the adventures of Arkady Renko, and I swear that it seems there’s not another decent book left in the English language that I’ve not read.

For the uninitiated, Martin Cruz Smith wrote Gorky Park back in the mid-1980’s.  It was a seriously inventive murder mystery set in Communist Moscow, and it did pretty well, both with critics and bookstore sales departments.  Then they made it into a movie, and that did pretty well, too.  Polar Star followed in late 80s—about the time that Glasnost was breaking out—and for my money, it’s the best book in the series.  It’s also a murder-mystery, this time set aboard a Russian fishing factory ship, leaving it with perhaps the most inventive plot that I’ve ever seen or even heard of.  From there, books followed as Russia and the rest of the world evolved.  Red Square was set back in Moscow, in a newly opened, awakening Russia.  Havana Bay followed in the remnants of Cuba, a place seemingly surviving on crumbs now that the great hand of international Socialist brotherhood no longer supports it.  Then came Wolves Eat Dogs, in late 90s capitalist Russia.  And finally Stalin’s Ghost, set amidst the backdrop of ultra-nationalist neo-Soviet post-democracy.  Bottom line, it’s all good, high-quality fiction with excellent prose.  Believe me, I’ll miss it until the next volume comes out.

In the meantime, I’ve been reading old Fables TPBs and The Complete Sherlock Holmes, which is great when taken in moderation, and John LeCarre’s Little Drummer Girl, which has terrific prose but a plodding style ala the unabridged Les Miserables.  But although that stuff is readable, it isn’t as satisfying as some of my other recent favorites.  LeCarre isn’t in Cruz Smith’s league, for instance, and as good as Conan-Doyle can be, it still lacks the visceral feel of John Ringo’s better work.  Or anything by Richard K. Morgan.  Hell, at this point, I’d settle for something by Elaine Cunningham or Jim Butcher, both of whom disappoint but rarely.  And what’s Brandon Sanderson up to these days?

So.  Anybody got a book recommendation?  I could use some decent sci fi or sword-swinging fantasy in my literary diet about now.