Part of Series
The young Soviet state is in turmoil. Chekists walk along the streets. Hunger, cold and mud crawl away in the former aristocratic quarters of Moscow. The old order has been turned upside down, leaving room for political infighting and dark subterfuge. This is the world Erast Fandorin - the celebrated detective - wakes up to after three years in a coma. His faithful assistant Masa might have nursed him successfully back to life, but there is no guarantee that the old Fandorin, with his razor-sharp intellect and superhuman strength, will ever be back. Determined to leave behind Moscow - a city he doesn't recognise anymore - Fandorin embarks on one last great adventure. But who can he trust in a country torn apart by civil war?
Author
Real name - Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili (Russian: Борис Акунин; Georgian: გრიგორი შალვას ძე ჩხარტიშვილი; Аlso see Grigory Chkhartishvili), born in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 1956. Since 1958 he lives in Moscow. Writer and translator from Japanese. Author of crime stories set in tsarist Russia. In 1998 he made his debut with novel Azazel (to English readers known as The Winter Queen), where he created Erast Pietrovich Fandorin. B. Akunin refers to Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin and Akuna, home name of Anna Akhmatova, Russian poet. In September of 2000, Akunin was named Russian Writer of the Year and won the "Antibooker" prize in 2000 for his Erast Fandorin novel Coronation, or the last of the Romanovs. Akunin also created crime-solving Orthodox nun, sister Pelagia, and literary genres. His pseudonyms are Анатолий Брусникин and Анна Борисова. In some Dutch editions he is also known as Boris Akoenin.
