Alexandra Marinina

Having read and thoroughly enjoyed all Marinina's books (some 40 plus...), I was disappointed to find her latest one not as strong. The book has the words "the other Marinina" on the cover (maybe insinuating the deviation into the sphere of medicine with more attention to detail than a regular novel would require - I am just thinking...) , but to me, I already saw "the other Marinina" before - when she, at times, changed her genre from crime fiction to human drama and was excellent at it. In show more this book, however, the plot seems lacking direction, and for the first time in reading Marinina, I felt like skipping a paragraph here and there. Maybe she delved too deeply into the technicalities of a medical examiner's job - the job that her protagonist is so passionate about... In the first two books of the trilogy, the story seems to drag on (with just a little glimpse here and there of things in store), and only at the end of the 3rd volume, the hurried denouement occurs. I am not giving up on Marinina, though - she's given me hours and hours of reading pleasure. But no writer is perfect all the time... show less

This is an intricate saga, a trilogy, covering one and a half century in Russia, comprising of related and unrelated characters (though in the end all of them come to be related in one way or the other). Of all Marinina's books (and she has been very prolific) this novel has truly earned the second best place on my list. The story line is unpredictable, the moral dilemmas make you take a step back and think and imagine yourself in similar circumstances. Historical events in Russia (between show more mid 1800s and the end of 1990s) are given a critical view (sometimes a really unexpected twist of valid, one realizes, criticism) while the characters' lives run through them. And just when you begin to wonder about the adequacy of this or that character to the story line, Marinina skillfully connects the dots and you are left with a sense of awe. show less

Out of all Marinina's books (and she has been quite prolific - 42 so far!) I haven't cared for just one. All the rest were quite absorbing, even when she occasionally strayed away from her comfort zone of crime/detective writing. What I especially love about her books, is how she connects the dots in crime solving - dots that she herself "scattered" as far away as only possible. In this novel, she ventures into the world of figure skating (my favorite sport to watch - though from now on it show more will be difficult to see it with the same eyes...). Here she solves the crimes based on intrigues and behind the scenes machinations of this outwardly beautiful sport.

Marinina started writing when Russia was still Soviet Union, and it's fascinating to see the progression of her main protagonist (detective Nastya Kamenskaya) as she goes through the changes along with country's upheavals and political and economic changes, perfectly catching even the language nuances as the changes occur. Cop slang in Soviet days was much different from today's. Plus the wide use of Internet and all the gadgets that come along with it made for a totally new sub-language. The latter was very amusing in the latest books. Which brings doubts whether this book in particular can be well translated into English, doing it justice.... show less

This plot is like a Matryoshka doll. One thing is hidden inside another and so on and so on. It's really well plotted and all the strings of the mystery tie together eventually. The reader is not left in the dark, one step ahead of Anastasia since we get parts of the culprit's side. Marinina does it quite well and keeps the reader guessing as to who is the villain of the tale.

I like Marinina's Moscow police procedural mysteries. Not a ton of violence and mostly never seen. They are a show more psychological, historical (90s Russia) mysteries well worth checking out. Her books are not translated in English. show less