Book excerpt: Moscow’s 19th century diplomat-detective Fandorin is on the run for murder in this ingenious historical mystery by “the Russian Ian Fleming” (Ruth Rendell). Since the publication of The Winter Queen, a New York Times Notable Book, millions of readers have been enthralled by Erast Fandorin, “a devastatingly attractive combination of Sherlock Holmes, Lord Peter Wimsey and James Bond” (The Guardian). Now, Moscow’s premier sleuth returns to see his guile, morals, and even his identity challenged in a thriller “brimming with adventure and extraordinary vitality” (Anne Perry, Edgar Award winner). Moscow, 1891. The new Governor General of Siberia has been secreted away on a train from St. Petersburg to the former Russian capital. Out of a raging blizzard emerges a mustachioed official who introduces himself as State Counsellor Erast Fandorin, who thrusts a dagger into the general’s heart then flees. When the Department of Security arrests Fandorin for12/ murder, he must find the imposter to save his own life. As the trail leads to the fearless machinations of terrorist revolutionaries, corruption among his fellow officials, and the seductions of a young nihilist, Fandorin’s mission is becoming rather dangerous. In this “relentless page-turner . . . the 19th century that Mr. Akunin depicts is pulsing with irresistible energy” (New York Journal of Books). Adapted for the screen in 2005 as one of the most expensive films ever made in Russia, The State Counsellor is a “remarkably good . . . and entertaining detective novel that is simultaneously an excursion into Russian history and culture” (Los Angeles Review of Books)—one that “will keep readers guessing until the end” (Publishers Weekly).