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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A little slower than the typical Akunin,
By
This review is from: She Lover of Death (Hardcover)
I am a big fan of Boris Akunin, and I anxiously awaited the English translation of _She-Lover of Death_. (My Russian never was that great.) As it typical of Akunin, stylistically this is different from his previous Fandorin mysteries - this time the style and organization reminded me of Stoker, as the novel is largely written through letters, diary entries and newspaper articles. I liked the variation, although the pace was much more lesiurely than I prefer, and Fandorin himself doesn't enter into the narrative until almost a third of the way in.
The story revolves around a secret society in 1900 Moscow, the "Lovers of Death" who write poems dedicated to Death, idealizing it as a Bride (or Bridegroom), before committing suicide. At question is who are these people: is it indeed suicide, or is there a clever serial killer at large? If it is suicide, what possibly could be the motivation and rationale behind a "suicide club"? If it is a murderer, who among the "Lovers of Death" is the killer? Among the suspects is Fandorin himself, who apparently has fallen out of favour with the authorities - a member of the society is a police informant, the powers that be expressing an interest in (and familiarity with) our intrepid Erast Petrovich. As a mystery, this is fairly solid work - no unknown variables show up in the last chapter, the primary loose ends of the plot are tied together (save for the larger question around Fandorin's fall from grace), and the elaborate reveal in which the "who dunnit" and how they did it is deliciously rewarding. Had the pace of the story moved a bit more quickly I would have given it 5 stars. Fans of the series will not be disappointed; for those unfamilair with this writer or the character of Erast Fandorin, readers are in for a rare treat.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
No real surprises, but a good pulp crime adventure,
This review is from: She Lover of Death (Hardcover)
Drawn to the city by a young boy she has met, a young girl of a romantic nature renames herself Columbine and travels to Moscow from the provinces to create a new life for herself. Although her Harlequin turns out to be a disappointment, he introduces her into a secretive group that the whole of the capital is talking about - the Lovers of Death, a small group of sensitive poets, each of them eagerly waiting their turn to die a romantic fin-de-siècle death by suicide. The close proximity with Death inspires them to create fine poetry until the moment that Death judges them as being worthy of being called to be her lover.
The sudden rise of incidents of suicide, the victims leaving behind a final flourish of a poem as a suicide note, hasn't gone unnoticed by the newspapers or by the authorities, each of whom try to infiltrate the group, fearing that the epidemic will spread and inspire others to end their lives. Following the calling of another one of their number to the other side, the leader of the group, the Doge, introduces a new applicant into the Lovers of Death group - a distinguished gentleman with a Japanese servant who it would seem has already had a close encounter with Death in the past. She-Lover of Death has everything you expect now from an Akunin Fandorin mystery, taking in questions about the nature of the Russian people and their temperament with literary allusions - here evidently the romantic early deaths of its greatest poets Pushkin and Lermontov - philosophical musings and considerations of advances in technology, that all have a profound impact on Russian society at the turn-of-the-century. Fandorin's investigation is as usual followed from a number of perspectives; newspaper reports, an official investigation and from the diary entries of a romantic young girl, all of them adding up to the usual pulp thrills, spills and humour with a characteristically dark edge. The companion book He-Lover of Death takes place at the same time as the events in this novel, concerning the parallel adventure of a young homeless thief on the streets of Moscow who aspires not only to be taken seriously by the city's criminal fraternity, but also to gain the love of a glamorous, enigmatic young woman known only as Death. There is very little overlap in the two adventures however, both of them functioning as standalone works.
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