The State Counsellor: A Fandorin Mystery

Moscow’s 19th century diplomat-detective Fandorin is on the run for murder in this ingenious historical mystery by “the Russian Ian Fleming” (Ruth Rendell). Since the publication of The Winter Queen , a New York Times Notable Book, millions of readers have been enthralled by Erast Fandorin, “a devastatingly attractive combination of Sherlock Holmes, Lord Peter Wimsey and James Bond” ( The Guardian ). Now, Moscow’s premier sleuth returns to see his guile, morals, and even his identity challenged in a thriller “brimming with adventure and extraordinary vitality” (Anne Perry, Edgar Award winner). Moscow, 1891. The new Governor General of Siberia has been secreted away on a train from St. Petersburg to the former Russian capital. Out of a raging blizzard emerges a mustachioed official who introduces himself as State Counsellor Erast Fandorin, who thrusts a dagger into the general’s heart then flees. When the Department of Security arrests Fandorin for12/ murder, he must find the imposter to save his own life. As the trail leads to the fearless machinations of terrorist revolutionaries, corruption among his fellow officials, and the seductions of a young nihilist, Fandorin’s mission is becoming rather dangerous. In this “relentless page-turner . . . the 19th century that Mr. Akunin depicts is pulsing with irresistible energy” ( New York Journal of Books ). Adapted for the screen in 2005 as one of the most expensive films ever made in Russia, The State Counsellor is a “remarkably good . . . and entertaining detective novel that is simultaneously an excursion into Russian history and culture” ( Los Angeles Review of Books )—one that “will keep readers guessing until the end” ( Publishers Weekly ).