The State Counsellor: Further Adventures of Fandorin Free

FREE THE STATE COUNSELLOR: FURTHER ADVENTURES OF FANDORIN PDF Boris Akunin,Andrew Bromfield | 304 pages | 22 Jan 2009 | Orion Publishing Co | 9780753826423 | English | London, United Kingdom Boris Akunin: Where to Begin with the Russian Historical Mystery Author He had read good reviews of the series, knew of my interest in crime fiction, and so had ordered and sent to me "The Winter Queen", book one in the series. These books are very different to the other books I had been reading. Boris Akunin is the pen name of the Russian writer Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili, who was born in He had a Georgian father and a Jewish mother, and has lived in Moscow almost all his life - he moved there in when he was two. After a good education, he joined the Moscow State University as an expert on Japan, worked as assistant to the editor of the "Foreign Literature" magazine, as editor-in-chief of a 20 volume Anthology of Japanese Literature and generally published literary reviews and criticisms, and translations from American, English and Japanese literature. He mostly gave up the academic The State Counsellor: Further Adventures of Fandorin in to pursue a career as a writer of fiction. It was only after the first books in the Fandorin series were published to critical acclaim that the identity of B. Akunin was revealed. Three Fandorin novels were made into big-budget Russian movies, and an English remake of "the Winter Queen" is set to be released in Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili is a prolific writer, and has published children's fiction Nicholas Fandorin's 10 year old son goes time travellingscience fiction, spy novels, etc, etc. He has also published lots of non fiction work. In interviews he has indicated that the Sister Pelugia and Nicholas Fandorin books are probably complete, but the Erast Fandorin series is The State Counsellor: Further Adventures of Fandorin yet finsihed. Chkhartishvili also seems to be writing under a variety of other preudonyms - watch for new authors being promoted by one of Akunin's publishing houses, and a few years later Chkhartishvili might admit that this is indeed him. He seems to stick to historical books, but saves the B Akunin name those with a mystery component. I usually get all my books from charity shops - I wonder if I'll find The State Counsellor: Further Adventures of Fandorin Fandorin in such places? This is the The State Counsellor: Further Adventures of Fandorin book in the Erast Fandorin series by Boris Akunin. Usually I read of a new author in an article somewhere, The State Counsellor: Further Adventures of Fandorin that author, decide to give it a go, and manage eventually to get book one in some charity shop. But I did like the Swedish Stieg Larsson trilogy, so I was curious to see what a Russian author would make of the subject. The first observation is that this is a very different sort of book. It's written by a modern Russian writer, The State Counsellor: Further Adventures of Fandorin Akunin, but it's set in the The State Counsellor: Further Adventures of Fandorin 19th Century. The writing style is very distinctive - it reminded me of Charles Dickens. I'm not sure if this is Akunin's natural style, or if he has created a style to rhyme with the period about which he writes. The book opens with a table of 14 ranks - formally setting out levels of status and privilige in the then very rank conscious Russian society. Erast is a young man of good education whose well to do father had lost a fortune and died. So, Erast is an orphan. Strangely, he decided he wants to become a policeman, and he joins the local criminal investigation bureau as a lowly clerk. The story is a bit far fetched, almost old fashioned. It has a good opening, though - a young man commits suicide by playing Russian Roulette in a busy day time Moscow park. Erast reads of the suicide in his clerks position within the stifling bureaucracy of the department, and of other similar attempted suicides. Are these the repeat attempts of one person, or separate attempted suicides? Erast thinks one thing, his boss the other, and so Erast is eventually allowed out to do some investigating. It's all very slow to start with, and you have to persevere with all the The State Counsellor: Further Adventures of Fandorin Russian names. I was starting to yawn at this stage, but then Chief Brilling appears, takes over and re-organises the department, and sees promise in the young Erast Fandorin. The main story is escapist tosh, not very beleivable, a bit like an early James Bond without the gadgets, where a character or sect is intent on world domination. But I thought that the book was saved by the likeability of nice, gentle, impetuous, unworldly Erast Fandorin. He is the reason for reading the book, and yes, I'd like to read a bit more. The story builds to a terrific, but terrible climax that I didn't see coming. I'd read that the book is "a parable on the death of hope and innocence", and wondered what they were going on about, until I reached the climax. I think the Erast Fandorin that we will meet in book two will be a very different character. Lot's of crime detectives have characters blighted by tragedy in early life. It will be fascinating to read on, and see how much of the old Erast survives. This is the second adventure of Erast Fandorin written by Boris Akunin. It's set in the days of the Russo-Turkish war of the 's. Although Erast is a detective of sorts, it's not really crime fiction. These books are very different, and perhaps are something of an acquired taste. I enjoyed reading this book, but I'm not sure that I would recommend it to others. It's not a must read. That said, Boris Akunin is a good writer, and he does re-create the setting very well - I don't know how accurately, but it does seem to paint quite a realistic picture. Erast Fandorin has aged terribly in appearance since book one. The events of the first book have taken their toll. But the hero of this book is not really Erast, but a heroine - Varvara Suvorova - a very modern for the time young lady. They are just what we would call house mates, really, sharing a two bedroom flat. Anyway, Pyotr is conscripted, and send to the front of Russia's war with Turkey. Varvara sets out to join him there, but is robbed of all her money and papers en route, and is rescued by Erast, whose assistant she becomes. For most of the book, we see the war through Varvara's eyes. As the only woman on the front, Varvara's company is highly desirable, and she flirts with everyone. There is of necessity a lot of scene setting, and Erast remains mostly in the background. There is also a lot of criticism of historic Russia, which is riddled with too many ranks in society and the army, weighed down with stifling bureaucracy, with most leaders incompetent, and in short Russia appears a hopeless basket case. It all seems a very strange place, a long time ago, happening to very strange people. Life is cheap. I like Erast. I thought he should have been given a lot more to do. The book is hardly about Erast at all, he just happens to be there at the time. Strangely, the book is also a very slow moving love story. Varvara falls in love The State Counsellor: Further Adventures of Fandorin Erast, but neither realises nor recognises this - and Erast is still broken hearted following the death of his young wife at the end of book one. I'll read on, but only out of curiousity. Surely Erast will be back to form in the later books, and be given more to do. But you do get a terrific feel for the time and the place, and the politics of the 's. Oh, what was the plot? The Russian army's fight The State Counsellor: Further Adventures of Fandorin the Turks was not going as well as it should have. The Turks were down, and the Russians should have finished it off. But then there were a series of Russian disasters. It was almost as if the Turks had prior knowledge of the Russian actions. So The State Counsellor: Further Adventures of Fandorin mystery that Erast and his new assistant Varvara were called on to solve was this - was there a spy at Russian HQ, was it Varvara's boyfriend Pyotr or had he been set up, and if not Pyotr who was it? At the very start of the book there are reproduced some critics' comments, and John Smith of "The Sunday Times " described this The State Counsellor: Further Adventures of Fandorin as "pastiche of the highest order, absurd and yet completely gripping at the same time". It The State Counsellor: Further Adventures of Fandorin occurred to me that this was pastiche - I just thought Boris wrote in his own, old fashioned style copying perhaps Charles Dickens, just The State Counsellor: Further Adventures of Fandorin be appropriate to the time. Another critic compared the book to the work of Agatha Christie - and I can see what he was getting at. Instead of a cast of characters trapped together in a remote house on the moors, we have a list of characters collected together on the 19th century luxury steam and sail boat, the Leviathan.

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