Books: The Winter Queen

There are so many crime novel series on the shelves at the moment that everyone's looking for a new angle. Boris Akunin's series about a 19th century Moscow policeman has apparently sold millions in Russia. Based on a nicely designed cover and a fun bit of blurb about a corset, I thought this might be fun - potentially interesting background and a nice line in amusingly over-written Holmesian prose, if I was lucky.

Unfortunately, it's all a bit of a let-down. There isn't really any sense of place, the plot fails to engage (and there's a particularly nasty tacked-on several-months-later ending that adds nothing to the book but is clearly intended to set up the lead, Erast Fandorin, for a sequel) and the translation lacks zip or sparkle. Akunin also has an annoying habit of starting a chapter with a few lines about some young fellow who's sitting in a post office or walking through the park or... and what a surprise, it's Fandorin, who has been doing far more interesting things (like travelling from Moscow to London and back) between chapters.

Disappointing.