Special Assignments

InSpecial Assignments, Erast Fandorin, nineteenth-century Russia's suavest sleuth, faces two formidable new foes: One steals outrageous sums of money, the other takes lives. "The Jack of Spades" is a civilized swindler who has conned thousands of rubles from Moscow's residentsincluding Fandorin's own boss, Prince Dolgorukoi. To catch him, Fandorin and his new assistant, timid young policeman Anisii Tulipov, must don almost as many disguises as the grifter does himself. "The Decorator" is a different case altogether: A savage serial killer who believes he "cleans" the women he mutilates and takes his orders from on high, he must be given Fandorin's most serious attentions. Peopled by a rich cast of eccentric characters, and with plots that are as surprising as they are inventive,Special Assignmentswill delight Akunin's many fans, while challenging the gentleman sleuth's brilliant powers of detection. Praise from England: "Boris Akunin's wit and invention are a source of constant wonder." Evening Standard "[Fandorin is] a debonair combo of Sherlock Holmes, D'Artagnan and most of the soulful heroes of Russian literature. . . . This pair of perfectly balanced stories permit the character of Fandorin to grow." The Sunday Telegraph "Agatha Christie meets James Bond: [Akunin's] plots are intricate and tantalizing. . . . [These stories] are unputdownable and great fun." Sunday Express "The beguiling, super-brainy, sexy, unpredictable Fandorin is a creation like no other in crime fiction." The Times From the Trade Paperback edition.

BORIS AKUNIN is the pen name of Grigory Chkhartishvili, who was born in the Republic of Georgia in 1956. A philologist, critic, essayist, and translator of Japanese, Akunin published his first detective stories in 1998 and has already become one of the most widely read authors in Russia. He is the author of eleven Erast Fandorin novels, including The Winter Queen, The Turkish Gambit, Murder on the Leviathan, The Death of Achilles, and Special Assignments available from Random House Trade Paperbacks; and Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog and Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk, in the Sister Pelagia series. He lives in Moscow.