My Boris Akunin phase

He is my favorite this week or this past couple of weeks. Anyway, I’ve been reading his Erast Fandorin series: “The Winter Queen” is the first book. It is 1876 and 19 years old Erast -in his third week in Criminal Investigation Division- is given his first case, a simple suicide. But as the observant young officer starts collecting details for his report his curiosity is aroused and his acute observations prove the case much more complicated. It is also Erast’s love story, how he meets his sweetheart and what will follow. I loved the book but the finale left me very very sad. It was unfair… I know, I know, Erast has to grow and harden but like that?!! So unfair so heartbreaking… OK, the second book is “Murder on The Leviathan”. When Erast is send to Japan as a diplomat, in 1878 on a ship going from France to Calcutta; he encounters a Parisian detective looking for a murderer. Eleven people were killed in a mansion in Paris, a golden statue of Shiva and a silk scarf were stolen. Now on board of Leviathan, Detective Gauche has Erast and ten other people under suspicion and Erast is helping him find the killer.
I have the third and fourth books on hold and the fifth is “Special Assignments” containing two novellas. In first one “The Jack of Spades”, Erast is trying to find a charlatan and con man who has tricked people and stolen thousands and thousands of rubles. Also Erast finds and train Anisii as his very loyal assistant. It is a humorous story with lots of twists and cons! In the second novella “The Decorator”, Erast and Anisii and the whole Moscow are facing a horrible terror in the shape of Jack the Ripper or Ivan the Ripper… Yes, a couple of months after those horrible murders in London; the mutilated bodies of women starts to turn up in Moscow right when Tsar is coming to visit. This story has successful but sad ending.
What I like most about Akunin’s writing is his power of story telling. You never get bored reading his scenes and I guess we should thank Andrew Bromfield for his great translations of Akunin’s work. You get to hear two very distinctive and different voices in Sister Pelagia series and in Erast Fandorin series. The style of narration is completely different and shows the mastery of both writer and translator. Although some of the mysteries are not original, the plots are mesmerizing and fascinating and some times humorous. This two series have been two of the best I’ve read in past few months.