I’ve just finished The Turkish Gambit by Boris Akunin. Akunin is a Russian author who is HUGE in the former-Soviet book scene, at least according to his stateside P.R. This is the third book in the Erast Fandorin Series.

Gambit Cover

The series is very Russian. To get a quick visual feel for just how Russian, check out the author’s web site. Holy crap, that’s Russian. I have no idea what’s going on at that site, but it’s fun to click blindly around. Anyway, on to the book…

Let me ctach you up if you are not familiar with the series. The books take place in Czarist Russia, under the rule of Alexander II. In the first book, The Winter Queen, young Erast Fandorin becomes a police detective. He learns the latest in modern police methods from his mentor, falls in love, and helps to solve a mysterious crime. The story is beautifully written, a cross between a crime novel and Anna Karenina. It ends tragically, as required by the Russian Literature Statutes.

The second book, Murder on the Leviathan, is a more straightforward mystery. Fandorin, hangs quietly in the background through most of the book, waiting until the end to give the lengthy whodunit speech.

After reading the first two books, I ordered The Turkish Gambit from Amazon months before it came out. Needless to say, I had forgotten all about it when it showed up unannounced one day. What I liked about the series so far, especially the first book, was that the books are reminiscent of and written in the style of classic Russian Literature. Except they are well under 1200 pages. So if you have a hankering for Russian literature without all that epic majesty and what not, this series is a good fix.

This time around, Erast finds himself reluctantly pulled into a war between Russia and Turkey. The story revolves around the political intriques and double-crossing going on down at the front. Erast is assigned to the military intelligence appartus to figure out who is undermining the Russian military tactics. Really, the story, more so in this book than the others, is largely beside the point. The story here seems to serve the writing style, the political commentary on the future of Russia, the role of women in Russia, and just the whole czarist Russian milieu in general. Plus it helps mark Fandorin’s steady rise in Russian society.

This is the third book to be translated from what is now an eleven book series in Russian. I’ll buy the next one, no question. However, I would not recommend starting the series with this book. It’s not the best in the series. I also don’t think that this book will reward newcomers, as you are expected to know about things that have happened in the previous books.