The Winter Queen : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: A literary pleasure.
Review: Such a small book and yet so richly packed. The translation is, well, delightful. You'd swear this book really was written in the 1870s. It's full of wonderful little details such as Russian Roulette being referred to as American Roulette, and Fandorin's boss having one of the first of a new invention called the telephone. The characters are intriguing, especially the neophyte detective Erast Fandorin. More than a few times I was thinking, "No! Don't do that! Pay attention to your job!" But, obviously he wasn't listening...
I was sad to see this book end and hope the rest in the series get translated NOW. If you like reading Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky (is that spelled right?), give this a shot. It's not as deep as those authors, but it captures their styles well.
Also, this had one of the most shocking and devastating endings I've read in a book in a LONG time. I am still trying to deal with it.

Rating:
Summary: I'm Hooked!!
Review: So FRUSTRATING!! Akunin's next book will not be out until April 27!!

This is a terrific book by an author who has evidently been selling huge numbers outside of this country for years. It is easy to see why.

Winter Queen is the first in the series that follows Erast Fandoring a very young policement in 1880's Moscow. The writing is very good (as is assumedly the translation) and the author captures the main character's youthful exuberance wonderfully. There is a certain innocence and humor underlying the writing that is very entertaining.

Through luck and youth's belief in infallibility and immortality, Fandorin stumbles into discovering an international plot. It is a typically good mystery as the plot winds into this conspiracy. Mr. Akunin then rewards the reader by making the primary culprit pretty obvious -- but then it blows the reader out of the water with an amazing ending.

It was impossible not to like the main character. The villains are an interesting lot. The plot is very good with the absolutely great ending. The place and times of the setting add to the book as well. I defy anyone who likes mysteries to read this one and not get excited about getting his hands on Mr. Akunin's next one. It promises to be an extremely entertaining series.

Rating:
Summary: Like a Breath of Fresh Air
Review: The Winter Queen is a breath of fresh air, a delightful, witty detective novel set in 19th century Russia. The novel opens on a beautiful sunny day, in which a young man proceeds to commit suicide in the middle of a public park. Erast Fandorin, a young, naive and utterly charming young man, who is perhaps the Russian equivalent of a police detective, suspects that there is more to this suicide than meets the eye. His investigation takes him all over Europe and risks his life at several instances. Erast finally gets to the bottom of the forces behind the suicide and it is delightful reading following him there. Contemporary detective novels, though quite enjoyable, all seem to fall into one of several categories. In the Winter Queen, Boris Akunin has created a category that is all his own. Enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: Erast Fandorin series
Review: I agree with all the fans of Akunin's series about Fandorin, and have only comment to add. Author is not writing just a mystery novel, Akunin sets a field for character development, which will continue throughout the series. In the first book Fandorin is an unexperienced detective, where some readers may guess who is the actual villain way before the main hero does. In every consecutive story his character is maturing and it becomes more and more difficult to predict the end... With the maturity of Fandorin, it almost feels like author matures at the same time by adding more and more interesting and complicated twists to the stories. I personally have read all of the books out of order (in Russian) and after reading all of them, sat down to go through the books in the chronological order, which made a lot of difference. Last advice: if you absolutely hated "The winter queen" don't give up. Read another book or two from this series and then decide that it is not worth the time. As for myself, I can't wait to get my hands on the next book that came out three days ago in Russia.

Rating:
Summary: 'Queen' reigns as a royal series!
Review: "The Winter Queen" by Boris Akunin is set in 1876, Czarist Russia, and introduced me
to Erast Fandorin, the author's young investigator with the Moscow police. Granted,
perhaps the style of writing, the wit, and even the other nuances of the prose are due to the actual
translator's abilities (Andrew Bromfield), still this series promises to be popular here in America as well as in
Russia, where millions of copies of this series have been sold, we are told.

Young Fandorin (21 or so) fast finds himself caught up in a series of bizarre incidents,
beginning with the suicide of a young student. By chance, Fandorin indulges his
superior's "interest" in the suicide and then begins to unravel a far-reaching world of
intrigue, espinage, murder, and general mayhem, from Moscow to London and back.

The murder plot aside, Akunin's period piece is good reading as he's able to capture the
atmosphere of late 19th century Russia, yet without judging it one way or the other. His
few references to "the communists about" are also subtle, but not important to THIS
STORY.

Akunin's series (reportedly more than 10 Fandorin episodes) apparently are finding
themselves into welcomed English translations. If "The Winter Queen" is a true example,
let's bring 'em on! A good, exciting, series. ([e-mail])

Rating:
Summary: Good addition to your collection of Russian classics
Review: If I hadn't known that the author of this novel is a contemporary writer, I would have absolutely believed that he lived at the time this book is set in, which is 1876. Akunin's knowledge of the Tsarist Russian culture is remarkable. The language, the style, and the very tone of the book are exactly what you would expect to see in a classic Russian novel of that time period.

On to the story. Meet Erast Fandorin, a handsome young police investigator, poor, unknown, naive, and somewhat shy, but eager to be the best sleuth and catch all those villains out there. His chance comes when he is assigned to work on the investigation of a rather unusual, public suicide of a rich university student. Things speed up from there, introducing new leads and new characters. What first looks like a tragic love story turns out to be an international conspiracy, and you will never guess who is the master mind. Well, maybe you will, but right where the author wants you to.

Highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: Excellant debut of a series...
Review: Akunin's "Winter Queen" is a wonderful addition to the mystery genre. We meet Erast Fandorin in 1876 Moscow, as he attempts to solve a mysterious suicide. Soon, while he is investigating, a murder is committed, and Erast knows he is on to something. Frankly, Erast is quite lucky here, as fate prevents him from dying at least three times. That is why this book is only 4 stars instead of five. Good background on "Russian" roulette, and on the moody fatalism of Russians. I really liked how the conspiracy was found, and its purpose. The book should have kept its "Azazel" title for America, as it is much more relevant to the story. Count Hippolyte is an intriguing sidekick type, and I hope to see him again in an another Fandorin novel. Great shocker of an ending. Goes out literally in a bang.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Summer Reading
Review: Boris Akunin's The Winter Queen was a very nice 'read'. The first in a series, Akunin introduces us to Erast Fandorin, a young investigator newly hired by the Moscow police force. Erast comes to the police after his father's family fortune took a dramatic turn for the worse that jolted Erast out of a life of upper-income leisure into a career as a detective. Young, tenacious, intuitive, and more than a bit naïve, Erast is assigned to investigate a clear cut case of suicide. On its surface, an easy investigation designed to ease Erasts's entry into life as an investigator. Of course, all is not what it seems and Erast determines quickly that there is more to the case than a simple suicide. Erast (and Akunin) slowly peel away the layers of mystery and reveals in the process a world-wide conspiracy centered on a series of well run and maintained orphanages endowed by a rich, influential English noblewoman. Along the way Erast encounters love, lust, gambling, and avoids a series of death defying experiences. Standing alone the series of events described above sounds rather pedestrian. A well worn theme. However, the pleasure to be derived from this book is the setting, late 19th century Russia. Akunin has a keen eye for detail and atmospherics. He conveys (as does the excellent translation) a sense of what life must have been life in 19th century Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The book ends triumphantly but Fandorin's triumph turns bittersweet n the last few paragraphs. Although this made for a disconcerting jolt at the end of the book it is quite understandable when one considers that Winter Queen is the first in a long series of Fandorin mysteries. A happily ever after ending would not leave much room for drama in the next installment.

Some have compared Fandorin to Sherlock Holmes with a bit of Inspector Clouseau thrown in for good measure. I think Fandorin's character stands on its own and needs no comparison to other literary detectives. If I had to provide any sort of comparison it would be to the protagonist in Caleb Carr's The Alienist. The characters and story lines are quite different of course. The comparison lies in the impact of the historic locale (19th century New York City and 19th century Moscow) that forms the atmospheric heart of each book.

All in all this is a very entertaining piece of mystery writing set in an exotic locale. It is a perfect book to read on the beach, on a long plane ride, or sitting on a lawn chair in the back yard. I look forward to the next installment in the series.

Rating:
Summary: Reportedly the later books in the series are better
Review: This is the first in Boris Akunin's series of novels featuring the detective Erast Fandorin in 1870s Czarist Moscow that has been the rage of Russia in recent years, and it is a good thing the novels are supposed to get better as they go, because this was prettty much of a disappointment. Involving a far-reaching anarchists' conspiracy masked behind the apparently random suicide of a student in the Alexander Gardens, the story is full of twists and turns, many of which you see coming (especially the character reversals). Things aren't helped by the translation from the Russian, which winds up sounding exactly like a translation from a foreign language--indeed, it sounds as if it were translated from Russian to a third intervening language and then to English. And the novel's final chapter seems at odds tonally with the rest of the book. On the other hand, the conspiracy itself is pretty original and interesting (although you guess who's behind it very quickly), and the story, while quite literate, is pretty much of a pageturner. Best of all, the main character, the young detective Fandorin, is very appealing. Vain but bashful, smart but naive, and supremely lucky, he does seem promising for later (and, one hopes, better) installments in the series.

Rating:
Summary: Russian "Penny Dreadful"
Review: Akunin's historical mystery series is hugely popular in his native Russia and spans about ten books, the first of which is this one. Set in Moscow and London in the 1870s, the hero is Erast Fandorin, a young clerk for the Moscow police who gets caught up in an international conspiracy. If the words "international conspiracy" sets your warning bells ringing, it's with good reason in this case. The book starts promisingly enough, with the bizarre suicide of a young gentleman in an upscale public park. This piques the interest of Fandorin's superior, and the eager-beaver clerk is let loose to check it out. This leads to the salon of a beautiful tease who has whole passel of men wrapped around her finger. And this leads too... well, a whole bunch of other stuff that gets progressively sillier and sillier.

In the old days, this is what was called a "penny dreadful", and it's hard to understand what reviewers are finding so great about it. Yes, the Russian angle is kind of interestingófor about forty pages, then one starts to realize that Moscow in the 1870s doesn't feel particularly different from Paris or London of the same time with a bit of a stricter social rank system. The hero is also initially interesting, with his energetic idealism and naiviteÈ, but after a while he starts to grate. Many seem to want to compare him to Sherlock Holmes, but that's a very poor analogy. Fandorin (unlike Holmes), seems to find no clue to obvious to overlook, is repeatedly tricked and manipulated by his enemies, and is impulsive rather than deliberative. A much better fictional model is James Bond (as presented in the books, not in film). Fleming's Bond is remarkably foolish and tends to blunder around until the villains tell him their plot, only escaping death through some desperate act of bravadoóall of which fits Fandorin pretty well. The parallels truly come together in the ending, which is lifted straight from one of the Bond books (I won't name which one).

The writing and translation are fine; everything is rendered in a kind of mock period style that works fine in the context of the book. In the end, I'm rather baffled by how well-received the book is. It's a workmanlike period piece that veers into the lamest kind of excess, the kind of thing that would work better (or at least be more fun) visually, either as a movie or comic book series. It seems the series is destined to be published in its entirety in English, the next two books (Leviathan and The Turkish Gambit) are out this year, with The Death of Achilles and no doubt the rest to follow them.