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"[Akunin] writes gloriously pre-Soviet prose, sophisticated and suffused in Slavic melanchioly and thoroughly worthy of nineteenth-century forebearers like Gogol and Chekhov." -Time It 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 show more 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. From the Hardcover edition. show lessTags
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The Book Report: Erast Petrovich Fandorin, titular counsellor of the Tsar's Special Branch (secret police, ugh), finds himself in the thick of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. In a manner very like that of a skinny, stammering love-child of James Bond and Nero Wolfe, Fandorin arranges things so that the party responsible for the sudden and inglorious halt of victorious Russian armies to Constantinople, long the most urgent desire of Imperial Russian froeign policy, comes inevitably to light. His newly minted assistant, the silly and delightfully idealistic Varvara Andreevna Suvorova, takes the center stage for much of this wild, careening caper; a good choice for misdirecting attention, that, and yet the author *scrupulously* plays show more fair and puts all the clues before the reader...yet Varya's goosey honkings about irrelevancies and her young woman of middling class and wealth scruples, presented with great and genuine affection by the author, do screen the actual malefactor's malefactions quite neatly. One scene, a sword-fight, is particularly nicely handled; Varya's emotions of fear, disgust, and slightly tickled vanity (it's over her honor the parties fight) are so believable that it's hard to imagine the author hasn't had the same thing happen to him. (I doubt much that it has, though.) Quite a wonderful piece of writing (and translation), and not the only one.
My Review: All hail TadAD! His praise tipped the scales for me, causing me to get these books. I don't regret this, though I am sorry that I waited so long. Still, that means I've got a lot of time before I run out of them! There are over ten in the series so far.
Very high-quality escapism, written and translated very ably, and presented in a point-of-view that's different enough to make the well-worn genre of lone wolf solves problems for Big Government, and then runs away from the limelight, feel fresh and new. Recommended to all who have a yen for solving puzzles...I didn't figure this one out until halfway through! show less
My Review: All hail TadAD! His praise tipped the scales for me, causing me to get these books. I don't regret this, though I am sorry that I waited so long. Still, that means I've got a lot of time before I run out of them! There are over ten in the series so far.
Very high-quality escapism, written and translated very ably, and presented in a point-of-view that's different enough to make the well-worn genre of lone wolf solves problems for Big Government, and then runs away from the limelight, feel fresh and new. Recommended to all who have a yen for solving puzzles...I didn't figure this one out until halfway through! show less
I bounced rather hard off this one. It's an interesting tactic, to shift the POV of a series so absolutely in only the second book, but Varvara's POV was too annoying for me to get into, and I didn't think we got enough of Erast to fully observe how the events of the first book had affected him. I get the feeling that Akunin is trying to parody the melodramatic plot devices of nineteenth century novels in this, but either the translation doesn't quite succeed in capturing his tone or he's not quite deft enough at using such tropes without falling into melodrama himself. Not sure if I'll be continuing with this series.
Akunin is a highly talented writer. He manages to come up with new ideas and new ways of representing the crime thriller. I admire the way he is able to give us different viewpoints of the main detective as we look at him in some books through his own eyes and in others through the eyes of seemingly relatively inconsequential characters. Here we learn about the Russo-Turkish war towards the end of the 19th century and hinting at the troubles lying ahead in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. The story harks back to the unsolved mysteries of the Winter Queen but here we have a more mature and worldy wise Fandorin. The machinations of the European mpowers come into play here and although we are caught up in the detective catching show more criminal meat and drink of a crime thriller, the real dram here lies in the politics beteen nations. Truly absorbing and a masterclass in how to write a thriller, as all Akunin novels seem to be so far! show less
This novel soon had me searching for information about the Russo-Turkish war in 1877/78, a war I knew nothing about. The reader meets Varvara Suvorova, a Russian woman at the beginning of the novel. She has made her way from Russia to Romania to be with her fiance, a cryptographer with the Russian army at their HQ. She is thrilled by her romantic gesture as she arrives dressed as a man but hadn't really thought through how she would be received in a military camp. She meets lots of journalists, who are covering the war, and Erast Fandorin, whose powers of detection are more obscure than any detective you will come across. A mixture of farce, derring-do, romance, intrigue and military action, the characters vary some more richly drawn show more than others. All in all this novel didn't quite hang together for me. show less
2nd in the Erast Fandorin series.
Set during the Russo-Turkish War, this installment features not so much Fandorin himself, but a “modern” (1877 style) liberated Russian woman, 22 year old Varvara Andreevna Suvorova, an emancipated Muscovite (kissing a woman’s hands is so 18th century), who is following the Russian army to Bulgaria in order to be reunited with her grass husband, Pyotr. A guide leaves her stranded at an inn, stealing her horse and her money, an emancipated damsel in distress. And who should come to the rescue but Erast Fandorin, a mysterious creature indeed.
Whne last we saw Fandorin in The Winter Queen, he was in Moscow having barely survived the bomb blast that killed his lovely young wife. Now older (21) and show more wiser, he is clearly someone of consequence to the Russian Intelligence Service. Varya becomes his secretary, and shares in his task--to find out the traitor who is informing the Turkish Army about Russian plans. The story is told from Varya's point of view.
Akunin supposedly has set himself the task of writing in a different mystery subgenre with each of his books. I am nowhere near so informed as to be able to tell what The Winter Queen was, except that it was quite picaresque and featured Fandorin blundering around Europe, accidentally discovering plots (the Tom Jones of the apprentice police procedural set). This one is clearly the international spy thriller, and it succeeds quite well in a light-hearted but very satisfying way.
Don’t expect deep character development or serious detection; this is a piece of Turkish delight, rather sophisticated fluff, and it’s obvious that Akunin enjoyed himself immensely writing it. Highly recommended. show less
Set during the Russo-Turkish War, this installment features not so much Fandorin himself, but a “modern” (1877 style) liberated Russian woman, 22 year old Varvara Andreevna Suvorova, an emancipated Muscovite (kissing a woman’s hands is so 18th century), who is following the Russian army to Bulgaria in order to be reunited with her grass husband, Pyotr. A guide leaves her stranded at an inn, stealing her horse and her money, an emancipated damsel in distress. And who should come to the rescue but Erast Fandorin, a mysterious creature indeed.
Whne last we saw Fandorin in The Winter Queen, he was in Moscow having barely survived the bomb blast that killed his lovely young wife. Now older (21) and show more wiser, he is clearly someone of consequence to the Russian Intelligence Service. Varya becomes his secretary, and shares in his task--to find out the traitor who is informing the Turkish Army about Russian plans. The story is told from Varya's point of view.
Akunin supposedly has set himself the task of writing in a different mystery subgenre with each of his books. I am nowhere near so informed as to be able to tell what The Winter Queen was, except that it was quite picaresque and featured Fandorin blundering around Europe, accidentally discovering plots (the Tom Jones of the apprentice police procedural set). This one is clearly the international spy thriller, and it succeeds quite well in a light-hearted but very satisfying way.
Don’t expect deep character development or serious detection; this is a piece of Turkish delight, rather sophisticated fluff, and it’s obvious that Akunin enjoyed himself immensely writing it. Highly recommended. show less
Set during a time when Russia and the Turks at war in 1877, Erast Fandorin finds himself accompanying a woman whose fiancee is covering the war. She is determined to reach him. When the Turks capture her, he wins her back by gambling. She must pose as his personal assistant to be allowed to continue seeking her fiancee whom they are certain has been captured. The plot deals more with espionage than being a true mystery, and while there are murders, they all stem from the espionage element. I did not like the first installment, but I mistakenly read the third next and enjoyed it quite a bit. I did not really enjoy this one--mainly because I don't enjoy espionage that much. I listened to the audio book read by Paul Michael.
1877 год. Российская империя участвует в жесточайшей русско-турецкой войне. Юная девушка Варвара Суворова, петербургская красавица передовых взглядов и почти нигилистка, отправляется в зону боевых действий к жениху. Началось путешествие как веселое приключение, а затем Варвара вдруг остается одна в сомнительной придорожной корчме, и случайные попутчики даже играют на нее в карты... О приключениях Варвары show more Суворовой на Балканах, оказавшейся в самом центре интригующих событий и вместе с тайным агентом Российской империи Эрастом Фандориным разоблачившей обширный шпионский заговор, читайте в романе "Турецкий гамбит". show less
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ThingScore 63
Unlike the slam-bang events of ''The Winter Queen," which left this reader breathless, ''The Turkish Gambit" is a slower and more cynical book.
added by MikeBriggs
Andrew Bromfeld's excellent translation is as enjoyably dynamic as the original. It succeeds in conveying the writer-patriot's message to his many Russian readers that, in her pre-revolutionary past, Russia was surrounded by enemies, unable to trust even her allies, and that this is still the case. Thus Akunin's novels afford the English reader not only some fine entertainment, but also a show more conscious vision of something that Akunin's Russian fans probably access only on the level of the subconscious. show less
added by oszymandias
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Turkish Gambit
- Original title
- Турецкий гамбит
- Original publication date
- 1998
- People/Characters
- Erast Petrovich Fandorin; Varvara Andreevna Suvorova; Pyotr Yablokov
- Important places
- Plevna, Bulgaria
- Important events
- Ottoman-Russian War (1877-1878); Siege of Plevna (1877)
- Related movies
- Turetskiy gambit (2005 | IMDb); Azazel (2002 | IMDb)
- First words
- According to Saint 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.
La Revue Parisienne
14 (2) July 1877
Our correspondent, now already in his second week with the Russian Army of the Danube, informs is that in his order of the day for yesterday, 1st July (13th July in th... (show all)e 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. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)She wanted to keep the black figure left behind on the platform in sight for as long as possible, but the figure was acting strangely, blurring like that . . . Or could there perhaps be something wrong with her eyes?
- Original language
- Russian
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- Fiction and Literature, Mystery, Historical Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 891.735 — Literature & rhetoric Literatures of other languages East Indo-European and Celtic literatures Russian and East Slavic languages Russian fiction 1991–
- LCC
- PG3478 .K78 .T8713 — Language and Literature Slavic languages and literatures. Baltic languages. Albanian language Slavic. Baltic. Albanian Russian literature Individual authors and works 1961-2000
- BISAC
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