On 15th March 1878 Lord Littleby, an English eccentric and collector, is found murdered in his Paris house together with nine members of his staff. A gold whale in the victim's hand leads Erast Fandorin to board the Leviathan, the world's largest steamship, as the murderer is one of the 142 First Class passengers. Commissioner Gauche of the French police has narrowed down the suspects to ten, and they are forced to eat together at every meal time in the ship's Windsor Suite until 'the Crime of the Century' is solved. But is the murderer really seated around the table, and can Erast Fandorin discover his or her identity before Gauche? As more passengers are murdered and Leviathan heads towards Calcutta, Fandorin needs all his investigative skills to find the truth. Boris Akunin's latest page-turner again transports the reader back to the late nineteenth century. In LEVIATHAN he pays homage to Agatha Christie with a cast of characters and a plot which grips you from the first page.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
'Totally absorbing.' HOT STARS (OK MAGAZINE) - 27 March - 2 April '[Akunin's} skill is such that he has fashioned a gripping page-turner from the improbabilities and extravagances of his plot. LEVIATHAN look set to create yet more fans for this most adaptable of heroes.' WATERSTONE'S BOOKS QUARTERLY 'This is a book you want to gallop through, pitting your wits against the author, desperate to find out who did it. At the same time, the accomplished writing (translated by Andrew Bromfield) is well worth lingering over.' DAILY MAIL (2.4.04) 'Ingenious, diverting, sometimes brilliant take on an Agatha Christie-style whodunit...Escapist, exciting and altogether innocent. A lively, refreshing read.' -- Philip Oakes LITERARY REVIEW (April 2004) 'Erast Fandorin has been called a 19th century James Bond, and there are similarities...but Fandorin is more human than Bond, and Akunin more witty than Fleming. His writing is spare and the plot's place in time and space is achieved through dialogue, internal monologue and mores rather than lavish description.' TELEGRAPH (3.4.04) 'Completely gripping.' -- Joan Smith SUNDAY TIMES (4.4.04) 'Akunin...seems able to carry off whatever detective genre he turns to, and makes no bones about incorporating his diverse knowledge into his books' plots. The result is a barnstorming success.' -- Omer Ali TIME OUT (7-14 April) 'Akunin writes in a slightly arch style that is note quite a pastiche of 19th century prose; the translator, Andrew Bromfield, does a superb job of finding an equivalent voice in English. The style is particularly good for expressing the narrator's faintly ironic tone as he describes the mishaps that befall his naive hero...Akunin's neatly crafted novels offer intellectual entertainment with no further aim. No wonder they are selling by the tonne outside the metro.' -- Robin Buss FINANCIAL TIMES MAGAZINE (10.4.04) 'Peppered with eccentric and well-drawn characters, this is a delighful and original read.' GOOD BOOK GUIDE (1.4.04) 'Akunin is an outstanding novelist...Fandorin is a beautifully drawn character who more than lives up to comparisons with Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes...The characters are delightful and you can imagine them in a Woody Allen version of an Agatha Christie novel...Akunin's work is gloriously tongue-in-cheek but seriously edge-of-your-seat at the same time.' -- Viv Groskop EXPRESS (16.4.04) '[an] elegant pastiche...Akunin blends Murder on the Orient express with And Then There Were None and adds a dash of Study in Scarlet.' SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY (18.4.04) 'Such a charming language and an otherwise romantic setting ultimately highlights the shocking nature of the murders, and the switch between a comedy of manners and brutal murder makes this a thoroughly enjoyable read.' -- Rebecca Pearson INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY (18.4.04) 'a delightful and absurd tale of murder and chicanery set entirely on the world's largest steamship, sailing between Egypt and India...Akunin succeeds in both the humour and the mystery...Clever and fun.' -- Marcel Berlins TIMES (17.4.04) 'another entertaining spoof from the best-selling Russian author.' -- Susanna Yager SUNDAY TELEGRAPH (25.4.04) 'Akunin writes like a hybrid of Caleb Carr, Agatha Christie and Elizabeth Peters...The atmospheric detail gives depth to the twisting plot...' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (USA) 'splendid fun and a positive tonic, with sly nods towards Sherlock Holmes and Wilkie Collins' classic, The Moonstone.' -- Mike Ripley BIRMINGHAM POST (24.4.04) 'witty, thrilling, and wholly unputdownable.' -- TJ Binyon EVENING STANDARD (4.5.04) 'He writes with such intelligence, humour and panache.' -- Andrew Taylor INDEPENDENT (22.4.04) 'The plot affectionately mirrors many of Agatha Christie's novels and raises chuckles of recognition along the way. Every Fandorin novel pays homage to a different strand of crime and mystery writing; I can't wait for his versions of Chandler and Hammett.' -- Maxim Jakubowski GUARDIAN (8.5.04) 'hugely enjoyable.' -- Suzanne Hudson NEW BOOKS MAG (MAY/JUNE '04)
About the Author
Boris Akunin is the pseudonym of Grigory Chkhartishvili. He worked as a translator before writing fiction. He has been compared to Gogol, Tolstoy and Arthur Conan Doyle, and his Erast Fandorin books have sold over ten million copies in Russia alone. He lives in Moscow.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A VERY PLEASING READ. I do live this author.,
This review is from: Murder on the Leviathan (Audio CD)
I have actually "read" this work twice now. The first read was the hardcover edition of the book being reviewed here; the other was "read" by listening to the entire work via this audio version read by Michael Kramer who does an excellent job. it was one of the books my wife and I listened to while traveling. It should be noted and stressed though that this is an abridged edition. While it is good, you do get a bit of a watered down version. I will not hold that against it though.
Boris Akunin is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers in the area of what can best be described as Classical Mysteries; old school who done its. This offering which is very obviously a tribute to the late Agatha Christie is simply the cherry atop the cake for me. Christe, in my opinion, is one of the Grand Masters of this genre (I have never read one of her works that I did not like), and Akunin makes a very keen shadow novel paralleling some of her most famous works; Death on the Nile and Murder on the Orient Express are but two. We see glimmers of the unique Hercule Poirot and even Miss Marple lurking here and there throughout this entire work. The plot of this particular novel has been well covered in many of the fine reviews posted here. I dare not go into depth in this area for fear of unintentionally throwing in a spoiler which would be sheer pity and quite rude. But briefly stated, this is the story of a diverse group of people on a ship, the Leviathan, whose maiden voyage is to India. And here in lies one of the greatest strengths of this particular author. Each of the characters, as they are developed, hold true to their nature (or do they?), and interact perfectly with the others as they wind their way and are introduced throughout the story. The banter, the conversations, the clash and melding between these individuals is done as well as Christe herself could pull off. The former Russian Police Inspector, now a diplomat (among many, many other things), is pitted against Police Commissioner "Papa" Gauche in solving a multiple murder case recently (1878) committed in Paris. Both these men know that he killer in amongst the passenger and a battle of wits, logic and deductive reasoning slowly but inevitably eliminates one after the other...right up the last, I might add. One of the things I found most charming and entertaining about this work was the "small talk" between the entire cast of characters. The author has weaved their current circumstances quite well with each character's past, creating a wonderful and intriguing profile of each. Suspects are many and I will say that the twists and turns the author provides are equal, if not greater, in number. Each of the passengers involved in this case is an interesting study on their own and the author has made them come alive. Overall, this is an excellent read. I found myself on a bit of a nostalgic trip while reading it and am thinking to myself that I need now go back a reread some of Agatha Criste's work once again. Don Blankenship The Ozarks
5.0 out of 5 stars
A change of pace,
By
This review is from: Leviathan (Hardcover)
In this episode we have Fandorin on board an ocean liner. A mystery more on the lines of Agatha Christie.
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