Akunin Mystery

For people who like reading mysteries or detective fiction, I highly recommend The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin. The translator obviously contributes to the readability of the book. I haven’t read the other books in the series, but I am interested in seeing what happens to police inspector Erast Fandorin. Akunin is the pen name for Grigory Chkhatishvili. The book’s ability to weave 19th century Russian culture into the mystery is outstanding. Agatha Christie does not capture the mood of the culture and society in the same way or come as close in creating suspense and or weaving a tangled web. One of his reviewers compares him to Ian Fleming, which is an insult to Akunin’s writing and sense of the historical.