Martin Cruz Smith's fictional Russian investigator Arkady Renko (Gorky Park) was one of the most successful literary creations of the Cold War. Now in Havana Bay that the former USSR is in tatters, Renko has traded the snowy steppes for Cuba, where an old friend has been found dead. Renko is bothered by the manner of demise (the body was found floating in the ocean in an inner tube) and by the Cuban police's lack of interest in the case. Soon he's involved with a crazed, Russian-hating Cuban detective, two expatriate American criminals, some spooky Santeria rituals, numerous Angolan and Ethiopian war vets, and a $20 million sugar scam. As he discovers, ''in Cuba there is a fine line between the real and the ridiculous.'' That goes for this atmospheric, slightly desiccated thriller, too. A-
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