Book description
Senka Skorikov, orphan and urchin, has been abandoned to the murky
world of Moscow's gangster district. While picking a pocket or two, he
glimpses the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, and joins the gang
of her overlord lover, The Prince, so desperate he is to meet her. Senka
climbs the criminal ranks, uncovering a stash of precious metal, and
gradually capturing the heart of his beloved Death - so named for the
life expectancy of her lovers. But as the bandit community balks at his
success on both fronts, threats on his life begin to pour in . A dandy
and his 'Chinese' sidekick seem to be taking an inordinate interest in
Senka's welfare, and it becomes clear that those threatening Senka are
linked to a spate of murders, grizzly even by underworld standards.
Fandorin must unweave a tangled web of narcotics, false identities and
organised crime - but can he survive an encounter with the ever-alluring
Death unscathed? Find out in the darkest Fandorin to date! 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' Boris Akunin is the pseudonym of Grigory Chkhartishvili. He has
been compared to Gogol, Tolstoy and Arthur Conan Doyle, and his Erast
Fandorin books have sold over eighteen million copies in Russia alone.
He lives in Moscow.
