Customer Reviews

The State Counsellor: Further Adventures of Fandorin (Erast Fandorin 6)

5 star:		(1)
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"State Counsellor" is one of my favorites in the Fandorin series. I agree that Fandorin takes a bit of a back seat in this one, but the other characterizations more than compensate. Green is a fascinating study--neither hero nor villain; Count Pozharsky is a shiveringly good villain: affable on the outside, pure evil within. Mademoiselles Igla (Needle) and Diana comprise the femme fatale department. Having seen the 2005 Russian movie version of this book, I was eager to read it to see how the adaptation worked: beautifully, in my estimation. Anyone familiar with Russian history will appreciate the description of revolutionary activities in this book, which predated the October Revolution by 12 years. Akunin never fails to provide a snapshot of an era long past, with exquisite details and beautiful but not overly antiquated language.

Two more Fandorin books will come out this year (2009): The Coronation, and the Lover of Death. Looking forward to the whole series.

Do not miss the excellent 3-book Pelagia series, also by Akunin. Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk is the best of the series.

Once again we are treated to a well-written tale concerning Erast Fandorin who, in this installment, is working for the Governor of Moscow. A series of assassinations, near assassinations, and robberies brings out all of the law enforcement forces in Moscow to solve the crimes, and Erast is part of the group

There is a mystery here becasue the head of the revolutionaries, a Mr. Green, keeps receivng secret instructions as to where to find victims, and what to do. It appears to Fandorin that there is a traitor in the government ranks, and that is one of the tasks he sets himself to solve. Along the way he becomes intimately involved with a beautiful young lady whose sympathies lie with the bomb throwers, but he is drawn to her despite this, and despite the fact that he suspects that she may be the person passing on the information.

There are a myriad of other suspects as well, and the tale moves along briskly. The time period is never really given, but from surrounding situations it appears to take place sometime during the reign of Nicholas II's father. That means the 19th century is slowly drawing to its end, although there is more than a decade to go, and possibly more. Some "modern" inventions are mentioned: the telephone, electric lights and the phonograph, so Russia had those things in some degree for the well-off while the workers and peasants barely survived.

Be warned: the body count is pretty high, and there's one scene with Fandorin escaping from the top of a building which tends to strain belief, but I suppose anything is possible.

In the end the identity of the traitor is revealed and justice, of a sort, is meted out to various characters. Fandorin ends the book by deciding that, at least for the time being, he has had enough of government work, and wishes to retire to private life. I suspect that, in the next book, Erast will be back solving mysteries, either for the government or for private clients. Whichever way he works I will be there to read and cheer him on.

In the "State Counsellor" Akunin once again hits the target squarely in the middle. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, terrorists (nationalists, socialists, anarchists and just plain crazies) hunted and killed not just Monarchs and Generals, but Politicians and anyone in authority. At the beginning of this novel a man disguised as Fandorin murders the new Governor General of Siberia, in a train that is packed with soldiers. The knife has the letters "CG" for Combat Group etched into the blade. The CG is the militant arm of the Socialist Party and the successor to the "People's Will".

Fandorin's job is to find not only the killer but also the CG. Unknown to Fandorin (at least at the beginning), there is a 'leak' in the Police Department/ Internal Security. The leak (under the initials "TG") is supplying the CG with information to be used to eliminate high state officials. An officer from St. Petersberg (an aide-de-camp) of the Tsar, is sent to Moscow to take over the investigation. It appears that the Governor General of Moscow (and Fandorin's mentor) is about to be 'retired', leaving Fandorin without a 'patron'.

As always, under Akunin's deft hand, Fandorin is able to triumph over all sorts of plots and counter-plots, not to mention some unlikely turncoats. The one weakness in this story is the authors heavy handed treatment of three romances that go on as a backdrop to the story which seem to be superfluous. As in many Russian stories, there appears to be a level of anti-semetism in the book, but it's hard to tell whether Akunin means for this to be an accusation of the society at that time or an indictment of current Russian society.

There is an interesting epilogue, which to mention would be a huge spoiler. You will though, see a major change to Fandorin's character in the next book.

Zeb Kantrowitz

I picked this book up on impulse while looking for some light reading, without having read any of the other Erast Fandorin novels. The blurbs in front and on the back cover describe the Fandorin series as ""gloriously tongue-in-cheek," the lead character as "delightful" and full of "clever devices and mischievous tricks," and the translation as an "entertaining period pastiche" achieved by the translator, Andrew Bromfield.

Well, maybe those raves are deserved for other books in the series. In this one, Fandorin seemed rather passive, his tricks and devices rarely in evidence and rather hackneyed; you'll have seen them all in countless movies and TV shows. A few other characters upstage him. The villain, especially, is far more interesting and devious (though it becomes easy to guess that the character is indeed the villain a bit too early into the book). Fandorin's lover/girlfriend, an heiress, also shows a lot of attitude. Although the heiress and one or two other characters display some sense of humor, it was hard to find anything tongue-in-cheek or especially "delightful" about the book as a whole.

The plot centers on a revolutionary group that is assassinating various officials in Moscow. Fandorin is caught in the middle of the machinations within the various security forces, with overlapping jurisdiction, that are trying to break up the group. The plot's allusions to terrorism and self-annointed messianic Russian leadership seem almost prescient when one realizes the book was published in Russia during the pre-Putin, pre-9/11 era. (The book was published in 1999, and the action is set in 1891, though I assume that the Wikipedia contributor who established that date did so from some historical events mentioned in the story, since the year itself is never mentioned in the novel.) There are many Japanese motifs in the novel (Akunin is fluent in Japanese, and is famous in Japan for his 2007 bestselling translation of "The Brothers Karamazov"), but anyone who speaks even the most basic Japanese could have corrected the translator's transliterations of several phrases.

All in all, neither the historical aspects nor the occasional interesting character save this from being a very mild entertainment at best. I'm agnostic about the other books in the series, but I can only hope that this one is kind of an exception -- like a James Bond movie starring one of those guys whose name you can't remember.