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35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Another Excellent Erast Fandorin Mystery, March 8, 2005
Boris Akunin's Erast Fandorin series has been spectacularly successful in Russia. Akunin's books have sold millions of copies there. Akunin, whose real name is Grigori Chkhartisvili, was born in (Soviet) Georgia. He grew up in Kazakhstan and then Moscow. Highly educated, Akunin was a student of linguistics, editor of a scholarly literary journal and a Japanese-Russian translator. He turned to writing these stories at age 40 during his self-described mid-life crisis. He saw a niche between the serious tomes that marked Russian literature (Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn, etc.) and the mass market pulp fiction that dominated the low end of the post-Communist literary market. His book sales both in Russia and in Europe and the United States have proved him correct. Turkish Gambit takes place in 1877. Russia is at war with Turkey after Russia and Serbia came to the aid of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria in their struggle to free themselves from rule by the Ottoman Empire. The war had important implications for all of Europe. The war was concluded at the Congress of Berlin, a congress that pretty much stripped the Russians of the gains they had made in the war. The Congress of Berlin humiliated the Russians and paved the way for future unrest in the Balkans that eventually led to the First World War. Newspaper reporters and others (including assorted spies) flocked to the battlefront from all over Europe. This is the historical context in which we find Fandorin and the Turkish Gambit's cast of characters. The story centers on a young lady, Vavara Surovova. Like many children of the Russian aristocracy she considered herself progressive, smoked, enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh, and had a great disdain for Tsarist rule. Nevertheless, she decides to travel from Moscow to meet up with her fiancé, a Russian officer serving in the corps of cryptographers. No sooner does her journey start than she encounters a life threatening situation. It is here that Fandorin makes his initial appearance. Although she has no small amount of disdain for the man who rescued her they make their way to the front, near the town of Plevna where the Russian army is laying siege to a Turkish stronghold. As the story progresses Vavara soon becomes the focal point not only of the romantic advances of the soldiers and reporters encamped near Plevna but also of the spies and counter-spies who are trying desperately to influence the course of the war. The intensity of the story and Akunin's writing builds as the siege reaches its conclusion. As was the case in both Winter Queen and Leviathan nothing is truly as it seems and the layers of mystery created by Akunin are peeled away slowly by Fandorin. Akunin does an excellent job in maintaining the mystery throughout, even for those very familiar with plot devices and red herrings in stories of this sort. One of the more interesting aspects of this series of books has been the marked change in the style of each book. Winter Queen may be described as an action-adventure yarn with the young, optimistic and idealistic Fandorin racing from pillar to post, Indiana Jones-style, saving the world, or at least Moscow from some spectacularly murderous evil-doers. In Leviathan, we see a more subdued, thoughtful Fandorin playing the role of Hercule Poirot in an Agatha Christie parlor mystery. Fandorin was not center stage but would appear at critical moments to use deductive reasoning to advance the story and solve the mystery. In Turkish Gambit we see Fandorin in 19th-century spy mode reminiscent of Joseph Conrad's Secret Agent. Fandorin is more involved in the action than in Winter Queen but is placed a bit off-center as Vavara and her mishaps takes center stage. Turkish Gambit should not disappoint any Akunin fan that has been awaiting the publication of his third story in English. The Turkish Gambit is a highly enjoyable period piece marked by good writing and better than average characterizations. Turkish Gambit is the third Erast Fandorin mystery series translated into English, following the publication here of Winter Queen and Leviathan. However, Turkish Gambit was the second in the series published in Russia. For those new to Akunin's Fandorin mysteries I suggest beginning with Winter Queen, followed by Turkish Gambit and then Leviathan. So far there are a total of eleven Fandorin mysteries published in Russia. Akunin has also written another four books in which Fandorin's grandson is a detective in contemporary Moscow. I eagerly await the publications of these volumes. Turkish Gambit was a delight and I do not hesitate to recommend it to anyone interested in a good yarn.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Series with Great Potential, June 29, 2005
I purchased the Turkish Gambit because the novel takes place during the interesting but relatively unknown Russo Turkish War of 1877. The novel's backdrop is the memorable seige of Plevna, a bloody precursor to the trench warfare that Europe would experience during the Great War.
The hero of the novel is Erast Fandorin an agent of the Russian Secret Police charged with shutting down the network of a master Turkish spy. The novel's greatest strength is the rich atmosphere in which Boris Akunin places his story. With its haughty noblemen,dashing hussars and cosmospolitan foreign correspondents, I was reminded of Agatha Christie's Orient Express.
In my mind, The Turkish Gambit falls into the realm of the Victorian Adventure story. Like Harry Flashman or Sydney Riley, Erast Fandorin travels the Victorian world going from one adventure to the next. However, unlike Harry Flashman or a young Winston Churchill, Fandorin is never in the middle of the action. In this novel, he spends most of his time in camp searching for the Turkish spy. In temperment he is closer to Sherlock Holmes than Richard Burton. It may sound callow but I would have given this novel five stars, if Fandorin had been a more physical character. However, this is the first book in the series that I have read and I am impressed enough to purchase a second book.
For anyone else interested in the Russo Turkish War, I highly recommend Captain R.W. Von Herbert's, "The Defense of Plevna", a first hand account of the seige by an Englishman who served as a Turkish officer. It is out of print but can easily be found. This is a well written account in the same vein as Winston Churchill's early books.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Erast Fandorin goes to war..., March 11, 2005
Turkish Gambit is the 3rd novel in the Erast Fandorin series published in English (after 'The Winter Queen' and 'Leviathan'), but actually it's the second in the series.
The book takes place during the Russian-Turkish war in the Balkans and follows the real events, mixing fact and fiction seamlessly.
There are several things which, I think, contributed to it being published after 'Leviathan'. First - the hero of the series, Fandorin, is not as much of a central figure here, as he is in previouse books. Second - this is more of a war story, then a detective story. There is a search for a spy in the Russian camp, but mostly is about men (and a woman) at war. As a result, the book does qualify as a mystery, but just barely. As was said before (by me, and other reviewers), each Fandorin novel is different in style, and explores another sub-genre of mystery literature. It helps the series remain fresh, but it also can put off some readers, who prefer their mysteries to be more standard in structure:
mysteriouse and/or horrible murder - detective takes the case - a pretty girl, related to the victim - some missing files/jewelery/artifact - a chase - some sex - a fight - girl is kidnapped - the villain revealed/girl saved (not saved if she is the villain) - the end.
Sadly, while this book is not formulatic, the marriage of detective fiction and war fiction here is not as exciting and easy-going as the other Fandorin tales. Still, even when this novel drags a bit, it isn't lacking in style.
The war of Russian Empire with the muslim Turkey gives Akunin a chance to speak some thoughts of the West-East conflict in general. These thoughts can be relevant to the current situation in the Middle East, but I have to point out, that in reality they are about Chechnya (the book was written in late 90s).
P.S. A movie version of 'Gambit' was released in Russia just two weeks before the 1st American edition of the book, and it was an immediate box-office success. If you like the book, you would probably like it, too.
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