
As mistakes go, it’s a brilliant one.
Continue reading...Fandorin is Spencer Tracy, while Varya is Katherine Hepburn, but without the talent.
Continue reading...he Turkish Gambit appears to be as much an ironic sequel to Anna Karenina as it is the literal sequel to The Winter Queen.
Continue reading...When the “progressive woman” becomes a character type in the middle of the nineteenth century, she is usually a figure of fun.
Continue reading...What Lady Astair does with minds, her mad scientist disciple wants to do with brains
Continue reading...If this were Homeland, all of the documents would be on a wall, with red threads connecting them to each other. Of course, if this were Homeland, the detective would be a lot more compelling.
Continue reading...There is precious little bloodsucking in Akunin’s oeuvre, which I’ve long considered a serious flaw.
Continue reading...Though he may grow up to be a Russian Poirot, for now he is something of a Miss Marple, underestimated by everyone around him.
Continue reading...As Chekhov taught us, if a whalebone corset appears in Chapter One, it’s bound to get stabbed in Chapter Five.
Continue reading...Iin the beginning of The Winter Queen we see all the ways in which witnesses tried *not* to see the suicide happen.
Continue reading...Erast Fandorin gets bitten by a radioactive raznochinets and is granted super-raznochinets abilities.
Continue reading...Why reread Boris Akunin? For that matter, why read him in the first place? And, for God’s sake, why blog about it?
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