Turkish Gambit

Turkish Gambit

by Boris Akunin

Phoenix, $135

Imagine a 19th-century Hercule Poirot with Indiana Jones' knack for adventure in a Balkan setting and you have secret agent Erast Fandorin. Gifted in languages, schooled in the unknowable, and a good sort, in general, he makes his third appearance in Boris Akunin's (aka Grigory Chkhartishvili) third tsarist-detective novel. Set during the Russo-Turkish war, Turkish Gambit is not unlike Gideon Defoe's Pirates novelette in its hammed-up tone (chapter one is called 'In which a progressive woman finds herself in a quite desperate situation'). Our hero, Fandorin, is trying to nab a Turkish spy in the Russian army when he comes across modern Russian damsel Varvara Suvorova, who is trying to make her way to the front to be reunited with her fiance. She allows herself to be rescued, starts assisting Fandorin in his work, and, after removing her male disguise, finds herself the centre of attention of numerous suitors. Fun, but less artful than Fandorin's previous outings, Turkish Gambit nevertheless hints at the foundations of Akunin's phenomenal success in his native Russia.