The Turkish Gambit (Erast Fandorin Series #2)

by Boris Akunin, Paul Michael (Narrated by)

Overview

“[Akunin] writes gloriously pre-Soviet prose, sophisticated and suffused in Slavic melanchioly and thoroughly worthy of nineteenth-century forebearers like Gogol and Chekhov.”–TimeIt is 1877, and war has broken out between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. The Bulgarian front resounds with the thunder of cavalry charges, the roar of artillery, and the clash of steel on steel during the world’s last great horse-and-cannon conflict. Amid the treacherous atmosphere of a nineteenth-century Russian field army, former diplomat and detective extraordinaire Erast Fandorin finds his most confounding case.It’s difficulties are only compounded by the presence of Varya Suvorova, a deadly serious (and seriously beautiful) woman with revolutionary ideals who has disguised herself as a boy in order to find her respected comrade– and fiancé–Pyotr Yablokov, an army cryptographer. Even after Fandorin saves her life, Varya can hardly bear to thank such a “lackey of the throne” for his efforts.But when Yablokov is accused of espionage and faces imprisonment and execution, Varya must turn to Fandorin to find the real culprit . . . a mission that forces her to reconsider his courage, deductive mind, and piercing gaze.Filled with the same delicious detail, ingenious plotting, and subtle satire as The Winter Queen and Murder on the Leviathan, The Turkish Gambit confirms Boris Akunin’s status as a master of the historical thriller–and Erast Fandorin as a detective for the ages.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781415923573
Publisher:	Books on Tape, Inc.
Publication date:	02/26/2008
Series:	Erast Fandorin Series , #2
Edition description:	Unabridged

About the Author

BORIS AKUNIN is the pen name of Grigory Chkhartishvili, who was born in the republic of Georgia in 1956. A philologist, critic, essayist, and translator of Japanese, he published his first detective stories in 1998 and quickly became one of the most widely read authors in Russia. He has written eleven Erast Fandorin novels to date, which have sold more than eight million copies in Russia and been translated into nearly two dozen languages. He lives in Moscow.

ANDREW BROMFIELD was born in Hull in Yorkshire, England, and is the acclaimed translator of the stories and novels of Victor Pelevin. He also translated into English Boris Akunin’s first two Erast Fandorin mysteries, The Winter Queen and Murder on the Leviathan.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

In which a progressive woman finds herself in a quite desperate situation

la revue parisienne (Paris)

14 (2) July 1877

Our correspondent, now already in his second week with the Russian Army of the Danube, informs us that in his order of the day for yesterday, 1st July (13th July in the European style), the Emperor Alexander thanks his victorious troops, who have succeeded in forcing a crossing of the Danube and breaching the borders of the Ottoman state. His Imperial Majesty's order affirms that the enemy has been utterly crushed and in no more than two weeks' time at the very most the Orthodox cross will be raised over Saint Sophia in Constantinople. The advancing army is encountering almost no resistance, unless one takes into account the mosquito bites inflicted on the Russian lines of communication by flying detachments of the so-called Bashi-Bazouks ("mad-heads"), a species of half-bandit and half-partisan, famed for their savage disposition and bloodthirsty ferocity.

According to St. Augustine, woman is a frail and fickle creature, and the great obscurantist and misogynist was right a thousand times over--at least with regard to a certain individual by the name of Varvara Suvorova.

It had all started out as such a jolly adventure, but now it had come to this. She only had her own stupid self to blame--Mama had told Varya time and again that sooner or later she would land herself in a fix, and now she had. In the course of one of their many tempestuous altercations, her father, a man of great wisdom and endowed with the patience of a saint, had divided his daughter's life into three periods: the imp in a skirt; the perfect nuisance; the loony nihilist. To this day Varya prided herself on this characterization, declaring that she had no intention of resting on her laurels as yet, but this time her self-confidence had landed her in a world of trouble.

Why on earth had she agreed to make a halt at the tavern--this korchma, or whatever it was they called the abominable dive? Her driver, that dastardly thief Mitko, had started whining, using those peculiar Bulgarian endings: "Let's water the hossesta, let's water the hossesta." So they had stopped to water the horses. Oh, God, what was she going to do now?

Varya was sitting in the corner of a dingy and utterly filthy shed at a table of rough-hewn planks, frightened to death. Only once before had she ever experienced such grim, hopeless terror: when at the age of six she broke her grandmother's favorite teacup and hid under the divan to await the inevitable retribution.

If she could only pray--but progressive women didn't pray. And, meanwhile, the situation looked absolutely desperate.

So . . . the St. Petersburg--Bucharest leg of her route had been traversed rapidly enough, even comfortably: The express train (two passenger coaches and ten flatcars carrying artillery pieces) had rushed Varya to the capital of the principality of Romania in three days. The brown eyes of the lady with the cropped hair, who smoked papyrosas and refused on principle to allow her hand to be kissed, had very nearly set the army officers and staff functionaries bound for the theater of military operations at one another's throats. At every halt Varya was presented with bouquets of flowers and baskets of strawberries. She threw the bouquets out the window, because they were vulgar, and soon she was obliged to forswear the strawberries as well, because they brought her out in a rash. It had turned out to be a rather amusing and pleasant...

Editorial Reviews

If chatty digressions on love and war tend to slow the third Erast Fandorin historical to appear in the U.S. (after 2004's Murder on the Leviathan), Russian author Akunin does a superb job of rendering the immediacy of battle in the 1877-1878 conflict between the Motherland and Turkey, and illuminating the politics behind czarist fantasies of recapturing Constantinople. At the Balkan front, the quiet, stuttering Fandorin befriends Varya Suvorova, a midwife turned telegraphist. Varya is bent on visiting her court-martialed fiance, who's accused of being a spy. Fandorin and Varya are soon caught up in the fortunes of the Russian army, which a well-placed mole seems intent on betraying. Suspicions point to various Russian staff officers and to some glamorous foreign correspondents, including Seamus McLaughlin from London's Daily Post and Michel Paladin from the Revue Parisienne. Codes, courtesans and love letters all come into play, as well as murder and suicide in combat, in a plot more complex than some West Point battle plans. While the plethora of minor characters can be confusing, the quirky Fandorin and determined Varya stand out amid the turmoil of their surroundings. Agent, Linda Michaels Ltd. (Mar. 15) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Though he keeps bringing back diffident yet penetrating sleuth Erast Fandorin, Akunin never exactly repeats himself. The Winter Queen, which introduced Fandorin, was a chilling evocation of pre-revolutionary Russia; Murder on the Leviathan was a Byzantine nod to Agatha Christie. Here, Fandorin seems almost like a secondary character, as in gentlemanly fashion he yields to fiery Varya Suvorova. Russia is warring with the Ottoman Empire, and Varya has trekked to the Bulgarian front to be with her fiance. When she is abandoned by her carriage driver, Fandorin rescues her and escorts her to headquarters, further smoothing the way by arranging for her to serve as his assistant. With her fiance accused of treason, Varya is truly in the thick of things; a veritable cavalcade of officers and foreign correspondents keep her (and the reader) occupied. Varya is a terrific character, though fans will miss seeing more of Fandorin, and having him share the spotlight diffuses the energy a bit. Yet this is a complex and cutting tale, with a surprise villain, that should appeal to the international thriller crowd. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/04.]-Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Imperturbable Titular Counselor Erast Petrovich Fandorin hunts a traitor who's undermining Russian efforts against the Ottoman Empire in 1877. On her way to hunt for her fiance, cryptographer Pyotr Yablokov, behind the lines on the Bulgarian front, stenographer/telegraphist/nihilist Varvara Suvorova is abandoned by a guide who runs off with her carriage, her passport, and all her money. Luckily, she's adopted by a cluster of eligible males: London Post correspondent Seamus McLaughlin, Revue Parisienne correspondent Charles Paladin, dashing Cossack commander Major-General Michel Sobolev, Chief of Gendarmes Laventy Mizinov, and Romanian Col. Mikhai Lukan. All of them buzz around her gratifyingly-except for Fandorin. Like Varvara, the sleuthing diplomat has come to the front on an unusual errand: to deliver an order from Tsar Alexander to Mizinov concerning the Russian occupation of Plevna. When someone intercepts the coded message and substitutes Nikopol for Plevna, the Imperial forces occupy the wrong town, subjecting themselves to a damaging attack and Yablokov to suspicion of treason. Varvara, attached as a secretary to Fandorin, naturally hopes to work with him to vindicate her fiance-but it seems impossible to work with a detective as preternaturally detached from her and everything else as Fandorin. Solid historical background and a dryly jaundiced view of the rivalries among military heroes and wannabes don't elevate this period piece or its stock characters to the realm of Fandorin's remarkable retro puzzler Murder on the Leviathan (2004).

Kirkus Reviews

Akunin’s mystery [series] is wildly popular in his homeland, and deservedly so. His plots are intricate. . . . Impressive.”
–The New Yorker

“An exquisitely filigreed thriller . . . delicious.”
–Entertainment Weekly

“This sophisticated mystery is a marvel.”
–The Boston Globe

“Fandorin delves with his customary mix of taciturn superiority and apparent bewilderment. He is a delightful character like no other in crime fiction.”
–The Times (London)

From the Publisher