This was really a rather fatuous book, and I don’t propose to say much about it. In the interests of balance, I should point out that it the latest volume of a long series, and I had not read any of its predecessors, so I acknowledge that I probably lacked a lot of contextual resource. Even given that, however, I still found that it lacked any substance at all. The characters (and Erast Fandorin, the protagonist, in particular) seemed wholly two dimensional, and the plot was contrived beyond any tolerable degree. ( )

Boris Akunin is the pseudonym for Grigory Chkhartishvili, one of the most successful crime writers ever to emerge from Russia. His series of books featuring Erast Fandorin span several decades of the late 19th and early 20th century, and have sold tens of millions of copies in Russia. The English translations by Andrew Bromfield are superb. The books have been described as "Tolstoy writing James Bond with the logical rigour of Sherlock Holmes," though that may apply mainly to the first ones in the evolving series. I have enjoyed the whole series, from The Winter Queen up through this book, which is set in 1914 on the very brink of the outbreak of the First World War. This is a complex story, and it helps for one to have an understanding of Russian history. (In parallel to these books, Akunin also writes history books.) Set in Baku, this story has Fandorin -- who is now in his 50s -- on the trail of a revolutionary terrorist known as "Woodpecker" or "Odysseus". This villain is, of course, a Bolshevik and he has some clear parallels to a young Stalin. Fandorin (and the author as well) have strong views about this: "All ardent revolutionaries are basically psychologically sick," he thinks. Without giving too much away, this may be the very last of the Fandorin books (I'm actually not sure about this) -- but I certainly hope not. ( )

What sheer pleasure it is to read Akunin, especially his Fandorin series. This last one is no exception. Such taste, such elegance of writing and of ideas. It never fails to wake an idealist in me. Fandorin, the protagonist, stirs only the loftiest of emotions - no matter what is described: his confrontations always have a highly intellectual streak in them; his love scenes are never vulgar, but just a hint... In this book, it's 1914, and Fandorin is in Baku, at the edge of the Russian empire, where the oil boom is in progress but is being challenged by the conspirators, and the World War is imminent. The ending is very ambiguous - is Fandorin killed or not?.... For the sake of all the fans out there, I sure hope not... ( )