Murder on the Leviathan: A Novel (original 1998; edition 2005)

A wonderful little mystery in the Fandorin series from Boris Akunin. In this one, Fandorin is not the main detective in the beginning of the book, it’s French police commissioner Gustave Gauche who is on the trail of the murderer of ten Parisians. Gauche and a handful of suspects are aboard the steamship Leviathan which is making its way through the Suez Canal, and Fandorin just “happens” to also be there. This is one of the ways that Akunin is masterful in telling the story. The other is in having chapters which center on the various characters/suspects, alternating through them to weave in different perspectives as events unfold – but never Fandorin’s. The result is indirection and restraint, with Fandorin operating almost behind the scenes for most of the book. The characters are great, and the humor, flirtation, classic mystery elements, and plot twists kept it entertaining throughout.

Quotes:
On love:
“He is not entirely without vanity, thought Clarissa, but to her eyes this characteristic appeared quite charming and only seemed to make the young man even more attractive. As usual, it was poetry that provided the resolution of the paradox:
For even the beloved’s limitation
Is worthy, in love’s eyes, of adoration.”

On men, this as Renate Kleber tries unsuccessfully to attract and snare our hero Fandorin three ways:
“In fact, of course, men were actually more like members of the canine family. Everybody knew they were primitive creatures who could be divided into three main types: jackals, sheepdogs, and gay dogs. There was a different approach for each type.
The jackal fed on carrion – that is, he preferred easy prey. Men of that kind went for the readily available. ….
[The sheepdog] loved weak, helpless women. All they really wanted was to be allowed to rescue and protect you. A fine subspecies, very useful to have around. The main thing here was not to overdo the physical weakness – men were afraid of sick women. …
[The gay dog] was the least complicated, and entirely devoid of imagination. Only a coarsely sensual stimulus, such as a chance glimpse of an ankle, had any effect on them. On the other hand, many great men and even cultural luminaries belonged to precisely this category, so it was certainly worth a try.
…
Fandorin stepped inside and froze in the doorway. Without turning round, Renate wiggled her rear at him and displayed her naked back to its best advantage. The wise beauties of the eighteenth century had discovered that it was not a dress open down to the navel that produced the strongest effect on men, but an open neck and a bare back. Obviously the sight of a defenseless spine roused the predatory instinct in the human male.”

On women:
“Wasn’t it John Donne who said the secret of female happiness was knowing when to make the transition from one age to the next, and there were three ages of woman: daughter, wife, and mother?” ( )

Գիտեի թե դետեկտիվ էր, բայց գրողս էր...​
Եթե Ակունին չլիներ, ընդհանրապես մեկ կգնահատեի:​
Խորհուրդ չեմ տալիս սրա վրա անտեղի ժամանակ ծախսել, ​Ակունինն ավելի հաջող գործեր ունի :)​ ( )

I knew when I read The Winter Queen that Boris Akunin was an author of rare talent. I raved about his ability to transport the reader to the Russia of the Czars in a wonderfully florid style. The Winter Queen was the first of the Erast Fandorin series of mysteries.

Akunin has decided that there are 16 different genres of mysteries, and 16 different personality types according to an interview he gave the San Diego Reader.

The Winter Queen was the international conspiracy novel. The second book in the series, but for some reason the third published in the US, was the Turkish Gambit, a spy novel. The third book was Murder on the Leviathan, a good old-fashioned cozy mystery. Not only is the structure of Murder on the Leviathan different from the Winter Queen, but the prose is as well.

The 1878 Paris murder of English Lord Littleby was particularly heinous, resulting in not only his death, but also the strange deaths of seven members of his household staff, and two children related to them. There was no sign of violence on the bodies of the staff members, and most of them were found sitting around a table in the kitchen, but Lord Littleby had been beaten around the head with a blunt instrument.

Although he possessed a large collection of valuable antiquities, only a single statue of Shiva was stolen, along with a silk scarf perhaps used to conceal it. But the statue was fished out of the Seine almost immediately, leaving Gustave Gauche, the Investigator for Especially Important Cases with few clues to follow.

Gauche is well named, and reminded me of Agatha Christie's description of her own character, Hercule Poirot as a "bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep." Having found a whale shaped golden pin in Littleby's clenched fist, presumably ripped from the murderer's clothing, Gauche determined that is was used to identify the first class passengers and officers of the Leviathan's maiden voyage from Southampton to Bombay. Detecting the single passenger or senior officer lacking this golden bauble seemed an easy task to Gauche and so he boarded the ship at Southampton, sure he would have his criminal by the the time the ship reached LeHarve.

And so we begin our cruise on the largest ship of the day, offering first class accommodations so lavish and comfort so great that passengers would have no need to bring their own valets and/or maids. Nor would they be expected to take meals in a large dining hall, but in small salons of about ten people. It was in the Windsor salon that Gauche, with the assistance of the ship's Captain, was able to assemble his most likely suspects.

They included the Englishman, Sir Reginald Midford-Stokes, an erratic baronet, scion of a wealthy family, travelling to some "god forsaken Oceania," Mme. Renate Kleber, a young, pregnant wife of a Swiss banker traveling to join her husband in Calcutta, M. Gintaro Aono, a Japanese nobleman who claimed to be an officer in the Imperial Army of Japan, a Mlle. Clarissa Stamp, a "typical Englishwoman, no longer young, with dull colorless hair and rather sedate manners," a specialist in Indian archeology, Anthony F. Sweetchild and the ship's chief physician, the Italian M. Truffo and his English wife of two weeks. Also at the table was the first officer of the Leviathan, M. Charles Renier.

When the Leviathan reached Port Said, a Russian diplomat, with a shock of white hair and a slight stammer joined the party, eventually informing Gauche in response to his unsubtle questioning about the absence of his whale emblem, "I do not wear it because I do not wish to resemble a janitor with a name tag, not even a golden one."

Soon items turn up missing, and then passengers turn up dead. It is clear that the murderer is among our party in the Windsor salon. But who? And how many will die before the murderer is uncovered?

The story is told in the alternating voices of the passengers, through their diaries, letters and private thoughts as each chapter is written from a different point of view. None of them from the perspective of our intrepid Russian diplomat, Erast Fandorin; we only see him through the lenses of the other travelers. But he is essential to the solution of the mystery.

Clearly written in the style of Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, Murder on the Leviathan is a cozy mystery reminiscent of Death on the Nile or Murder on the Orient Express. But it is ingeniously updated, as Akunin exposes the national and racial bigotry of that era and those writers and handily refutes it. It is the kind of book I had to occasionally put down, just to marvel at how well he was handling this genre and how much he was improving it all while poking gentle fun at its conventions.

The characters are beautifully drawn, the plotting is almost perfect and although it seems to slow a little in the middle, the mystery is resolved just when one can no longer stand the suspense. For we all know that there is another shoe to drop somewhere, we just aren't sure whose shoe it will be and how far it will fall.

If you enjoy an intelligently written, complex, cozy mystery, Murder on the Leviathan is one you should not miss. Whether you consider it a parody of the genre or a simple cozy, it is a pleasurable read. ( )

What I like about these books (I have read three of the Fandorin Akunin books now) is that the author does not stick to one writing formula, some of the mysteries are written in the thrid person, then again one I read focussed on characters other than the detective for almost half of the novel before Fandorin even got a look in! Here the action is in an enclosed environment so we see diary entries or at least some chapters are, others are more fluid thoughts of the main protagonists. This allows to see how events are distorted by each party. Very inventive crime writing at its best I should say! ( )

Murder on the Leviathan by Boris Akunin is a murder mystery similar to Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. The sleuth, in this case, is the Russian diplomat Erast Fandorin and much of the mystery solving takes place aboard a luxury ocean liner in the year 1878. Following the murder of ten people in a Paris mansion, the Paris police determine that the murderer will be sailing on the inaugural cruise of the Leviathan to the Far East. The most notable characteristics of this historical mystery are the author’s attention to both period details and attitudes, which are nicely depicted throughout the story, and his creation of interesting and diverse potential murderers. The settings offer readers a taste of the exotic and a hint of adventure.

This novel has everything that should have made it a page turner, but never was, at least for me. Curiously, I struggled to complete the book forcing myself to pick it up and read, never a good sign. The plot moved slowly and the twists and turns were not as interesting as required to keep me turning the pages. The main character, Fandorin, was not greatly interesting and I struggled to figure him out. On one page, more than two thirds through the book, Fandorin reveals some mystery about his past which intrigued me, heightening my interest for several pages, but this soon fizzled out. True, this book is part of a series and I have not read the earlier installment, The Winter Queen, which may have improved my interest in Fandorin. The author casts two men in the role of sleuth, one who is always following the most obvious, but incorrect path to the guilty party, while Fandorin saves the day and puts all to rights.

This novel was not badly written or developed, but did not capture my attention as I hoped it would. Murder on the Leviathan was translated from Russian by Andrew Bromfield. I have rated it 2 ½ stars in my rating system in which 2 stars is “not my cup of tea” and 3 stars is “enjoyable”. ( )