The great thing about thrillers set in Moscow is that, no matter what you think of the novel, you still find yourself waiting eagerly for the heroes to visit that restaurant, metro station or sausage-peddling kiosk you know so well.


That's the case with "No Time for Heroes," former journalist Brian Freemantle's fictional tour of the post-Soviet underworld. His two mafia-fighting heroes make lots of pit stops at the Metropol and Savoy, zoom around Moscow in dark BMWs with turbo-charged stereos, enjoy bliny and Armenian brandy at the Skazka restaurant, lose their tempers while waiting in line at passport control at Sheremetyevo-2, and have some pretty candid chats with a host of Chechen gangsters.


Freemantle, a former journalist who reported on the Soviet Union, has done his homework: He offers a romp through the Night Flight club on Tverskaya Ulitsa, some unkind words about the chastity of the Intourist Hotel, and a sketch of the mafia groups that have supposedly divided up Moscow's turf.


"The Chechen concentrated upon Moscow's four airports -- mostly upon Sheremetyevo, the international receiving terminal from where the most valuable Western articles could be stolen. They raided passenger luggage and freight ... Their knowledge and control of the airport involved them in the shipment of drugs from the south."


And what kind of book would it be if it failed to include some late-night shenanigans between an American FBI agent and a Russian hard-currency prostitute?


In terms of verisimilitude, the book generally hits the mark, with only a few stumbling moments.


Although published this year, "No Time for Heroes" offers some scenes that already verge on the prehistoric. In a blast from the Soviet past, the heroes hold up packages of Marlboros to flag down taxis. Today there are young Russians who can't even recall that practice.


Misspellings are an annoyance. The traffic police, or GAI, are described as GIA, while many streets are simply wrong. Botanichecky Sad is spelled Botanickeskiye Sad.


The plot and characters are generally less interesting than the Russian tidbits. Freemantle, an experienced novelist with 22 works of fiction to his name, including "Charlie Miffin" and "The Button Man," begins his thriller traditionally -- with a mysterious and sensational murder.


Joining in a dynamic duo to unravel the case are Dimitri Danilov, a Russian detective, and William Cowley, an FBI supervisor. We soon learn that Russian mafiosi have knocked off a Russian diplomat, and the ensuing investigation brings us all over the Garden Ring, to Washington, and for brief pitstops in Switzerland, Italy and Brighton Beach, the New York-area mecca for immigrants from the former Soviet Union.


There are some lighter moments, as when Danilov is astounded by the luxurious surroundings at FBI headquarters in Washington. Comparing the carpeted FBI offices with his concrete and plastic police headquarters on Ulitsa Petrovka in Moscow, Danilov found it "difficult to conceive it had actually been Russia which started the space era."


Unlike so many journalists and writers who take on the Russian mafia, Freemantle doesn't make a facile equation with the Italian mob. The author makes it clear that the Russian version is not just a pack of thugs, but an integral part of government at all levels.


At a mafia party at a former Communist Party dacha in the Lenin Hills, where guests are offered tables of goose, partridge and imported wine and cigars, the invitees include four government ministers, two deputy ministers, three judges, senior officers from every police district and a host of "specially-invited" women.


Freemantle even takes a stab at the one of the biggest post-Soviet puzzles of all: What happened to the millions in Communist Party riches that supposedly disappeared with the fall of the Soviet Union?


But despite its attention to detail, the book will likely disappoint foreigners living in Moscow. Like so many post-Soviet books about Russia, it doesn't offer enough.


Now that Russian television and print media have opened up, and travel in and out of the country is more or less free, it's safe to say that foreign journalists and writers are obliged to dig deeper when portraying this country. They can't expect to intrigue and entertain by producing the same snapshot portraits of a nation that foreign correspondents churned out in 1970s and 1980s, when movement and access to information was limited.


In this book Freemantle offers us far less on the Russian mafia than one could find in a few copies of newspapers like Izvestia or Segodnya. In fact, many foreign businessmen who are seriously trying to make money here have likely learned more firsthand.





"No Time for Heroes" by Brian Freemantle, Orion, 472 pages, ?15.99.