264 pages, Random House
Review
by Hereward L.M. Proops
I
know, I know... I've come to the party several years too late. Boris Akunin's
novels featuring his heroic nineteenth century Russian detective Erast Fandorin
have been widely celebrated for the best part of a decade. How I've managed to
remain ignorant of them until now is a bit of a mystery to me. Friends have
recommended them to me and told me how they thought Fandorin's adventures would
be right up my street. I've seen them in the bookshops and have always
considered them as a possible next-book-to-read but for some strange reason,
I've never sat down and read one until now. Perhaps it is because I'm spending
too much time reading dreck like “Gargoyle Girls of Spider Island”...
For
those of you, like me, who have somehow not heard of “The Winter Queen”, the
first book in a long running series, let me fill you in. Erast Fandorin is a naïve
but almost painfully enthusiastic young clerk in Moscow's Division Three (kind
of like a nineteenth century Russian equivalent of CID). Tired of trawling
through mountains of paperwork, Fandorin leaps at the opportunity to
investigate the suicide of the son of a wealthy industrialist in a busy public
park. He delves into the case with youthful vigour and soon discovers that
there is a sinister organisation behind the young man's death. To reveal any
more of the plot would be to spoil it but Fandorin's adventures take him to
London and back and involve breathless chases, deadly duels, mysterious women,
cunning disguises and countless narrow escapes.
“The
Winter Queen” is a fantastic adventure story that won't fail to entertain fans
of the crime / thriller genre. However, what sets the book apart from many
others is Boris Akunin's totally adorable central character. Whilst undoubtedly
very intelligent and highly perceptive, Fandorin is wonderfully flawed in many
ways. As a young and inexperienced detective, it is his staggering naïvety that
really strikes the reader. His understanding of the world around him is limited
and much of his success in his initial investigations comes from pure dumb luck
more than anything else. Polite and well-mannered but innocent to the point of
being pretty clueless, Fandorin blunders from witness to witness, unravelling
the increasingly complicated mystery by accident. Despite his lack of
experience, we know Fandorin isn't stupid and his wide-eyed wonderment is so
thoroughly endearing that we can't help but root for him.
The
novel really takes off when Fandorin receives an unexpected promotion and is
thrust headlong into the murky world of espionage. From this point on, we see
the youthful hero begin to grow in both confidence and ability. Such
unambiguous yet believable character development is sadly lacking in many
modern thrillers and it is so refreshing to see how Akunin gives his
protagonist the space to develop as an individual within the novel's relatively
short length. By the end of the book, Fandorin's experiences have shaped him in
a way that will no doubt come to bear upon how he behaves in subsequent
adventures.
Originally
written in Russian, the novel's translation is bound to be lacking some of the
intricacies the author intended in his mother-tongue. Still, the translation
makes an effort to capture the essential Russian-ness of the text, making
Moscow of 1876 very alive and believable even to those unfamiliar with the
customs and traditions of Eastern Europe. Most importantly, the pacing of the
text does not appear to have been affected as is so often the case when
switching from one language to another.
With
enough twists and turns in the plot to keep most readers guessing, a cracking
pay-off at the novel's climax and a splendid cliff-hanger at the close (which
has echoes of Ian Fleming's “On Her Majesty's Secret Service”), “The Winter
Queen” has all the makings of a classic thriller. Boris Akunin's novel is both
exciting and utterly charming. I can't wait to read Erast Fandorin's next
adventure to see what Akunin has in store for him.
Hereward
L.M. Proops
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