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The Death of Achilles

Audiobook
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks
In 1882, after six years of foreign travel and adventure, renowned diplomat and detective Erast Fandorin returns to Moscow in the heart of Mother Russia. His Moscow homecoming is anything but peaceful. In the hotel where he and his loyal if impertinent manservant Masa are staying, Fandorin's old war-hero friend General Michel Sobolev ("Achilles" to the crowd) has been found dead, felled in his armchair by an apparent heart attack. But Fandorin suspects an unnatural cause. His suspicions lead him to the boudoir of the beautiful singer–"not exactly a courtesan"–known as Wanda. Apparently, in Wanda's bed, the general secretly breathed his last. . . .
From the Trade Paperback edition.
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    • AudioFile Magazine
      Paul Michael handles the myriad characters and changes of scene in this Russian mystery with aplomb. Set in 1882, the story follows the investigation by diplomat and detective Erast Fandorin of the death of a Russian war hero. The man was found dead in the apartment of a beautiful singer/courtesan, but Fandorin suspects murder rather than death during sex. Akunin can be complex and rather, well, ponderously Russian, but with some nice variations in tempo Michael keeps things moving along. The main characters are individually delineated, the females are believable, and he has enough Russian accents that it's always easy to know who is speaking during a conversation. A.C.S. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      February 27, 2006
      Set in 1882, Russian author Akunin's fourth novel to feature Erast Petrovich Fandorin (after 2005's The Turkish Gambit
      ) consists of two parts that read like different books. In part one, the 26-year-old special agent comes to Moscow to investigate the sudden demise of national hero Gen. Mikhail Sobolev, who dies in the bed of an alluring courtesan. Fandorin learns of Sobolev's plan for a coup and of a missing suitcase full of a million rubles to fund it. The trail of the missing suitcase leads to the dangerous Khitrovka slums and then to Pyotr Khurtinsky, the scheming head of the secret section of the governor-general's chancellery. One step ahead of Fandorin is the mysterious Klonov, an assassin who may have once tried to kill our hero. As Fandorin closes in on Klonov, the narrative jumps to a retelling of the assassin's life. This shift brings a welcome change of storytelling, from the often stiff, theatrical language of the first section to a more natural, unembellished style. An exciting resolution only partly offsets this incongruity.

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  • English

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