I would describe them as slightly pulpy; to illustrate, the titular Fandorin is something of a polymath and dandy, with a Japanese manservant. The tone shifts as well: one novel can deal with state machinations and the wholesale destruction of a Balkan war, another can deal with a genteel mystery on a cruise liner. However, they have value in opening up new fields for me. They make (say) pre-revolutonary Moscow, a well established setting, that much more granular. To speak uncharitably, there would be the temptation for an English-speaking author to weigh pretty heavily in on the shadows of Revolution, and while a full cast of agitators, secret police, reformers and revolutionaries is on display, it's not the only thing going on. Akunin's Sister Pelagia stories (an Orthodox nun, somewhat in the vein of Father Brown) have a rural setting that occasionally verges on the Arcadian (while still being in 1890s Russia).
Anyway, I recently picked up one of the later Fandorin mysteries, Black City. It is largely set in 1914 Baku (the capital of modern-day Azerbaijan, as football fans discovered for themselves last year). An oil boom is in full swing. There is a whole series of social tensions: Tsarist authorities hunting for terrorists, Nouveau riche millionaires driving up prices, working classes toiling in heavy industry, Islamic customs brushing up against the course of progress, the ethnic tensions of the Caucuses....
 |
| Cover of the English translation (Andrew Bromfield for Wiedenfeld & Nicholson, 2018) |
All of this comes with a riot of set dressing: a winding Medieval quarter straight from the Arabian Nights, modern hotels, casinos and boat clubs, oil fields and the extravagant mansions of their owners. Costume takes in the traditional dress of the mountains, ornate pre-war uniforms, frock coats and sheepskin caps. Technology: speedboats, motor cars, film cameras, automatic pistols - and horses, folk remedies and Damascene knives.
It's an influence to throw into your list of inspirations, anyway. This post, set between larger projects, also serves as a coincidental tip-of-the-hat to Against the Wicked City, recently resurfaced. Baku is certainly in the milieu of that metropolis.
Interesting, sounds like a 20th century Bond film. How does it compare in tone and presuppositions about detective work to British Victorian and American hard boiled detective fiction?
ReplyDeleteTwo caveats: I read the bulk of these a while back, and I can't get hold of them at the moment to check things. Writing this on my telephone, so my apologies for the format.
DeleteA Bond film isn't a bad comparison. Fandorin's physical ability, various female encounters and preternatural luck at cards bears that out, though there is rather less globetrotting. Fandorin certainly starts as a government agent, and we see multiple adventures of him acting as such (unlike the independent Sherlock Holmes or the previously-employed Philip Marlowe). Some of the books have been made into successful films in Russia; Western adaptions seem to have failed.
Fandorin moves fairly readily between the mean streets and the court of the Tsar - more Conan Doyle than Dashiel Hammett. There's the occasional note of farce you wouldn't find in either; dead ends, humiliations - at one point, Fandorin is overcome and imprisoned infiltrating a fetish club....and is locked up in a prop dungeon rather than a room for containing dangerous men.
More seriously, there is a sense of everyone having an agenda of some kind, frequently political. There are careerists, cynics and the corrupt, but also a government and court desperate to stay in power and save face, generals with Pan-Slavist ambitions, brutal, zealous Social Revolutionaries and Bolsheviks both known and unknown. Of course, the Russian intended audience knows what's coming, for all Fandorin's successes. Even if the books aren't 'about' the Revolution and Civil War, they are there.
Imagine a rip-roaring adventure where Our Hero saves the USA from invasion...on the eve of the American Civil War. Even just catching the murderer will have a mordant air of 'was it worth it?'. For instance, The Coronation is a mystery set during the coronation of Nicholas II, and so has its cake and eats it regarding period glamour and looming shadows.
I have the few last books on my reading list - Fandorin lives to see the Revolution, but that won't be all. I may post any further insights as comments here.
Very, very interesting. Something seems very Russian about all of that interesting action taking place while the author knows everything is going to go up in flames soon anyways. Definitely a potent period for domestic espionage nonwithstanding
Delete