I’m halfway through Wolves Eat Dogs (Simon & Schuster, 2004), by Martin Cruz Smith (author of Gorky Park) – the first novel where we see detective Arkady Renko in post-Communist Russia. A lot of the action is set in the radioactive, sparsely populated “Zone of Exclusion” around Chernobyl, Ukraine (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_alienation and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_accident). One of the pastimes of the handful of scientists and militia (police) officers who live and work there, as well as the illegally resident poachers, is to hunt the local wildlife, such as elk and wild boar. But, as the local militia captain tells Renko, it’s only for sport; you don’t eat the animals, they’re radioactive.
Smith is know for novels that are highly realistic in terms of their social and physical backgrounds.
If these animals are so radioactive it’s dangerous for humans to eat their flesh, how can they live? Why isn’t the Zone of Exclusion a lifeless desert?