In the comical “The Jack of Spades,” Fandorin finds a Watsonian sidekick in Anisii Tulipov, a luckless and overeducated errand boy whose life changes when Fandorin takes him under his wing. In this thrilling collection of two novellas, Akunin (The Winter Queen ) pits Erast Fandorin, his brilliant Russian detective who serves as the deputy for special assignments to the governor-general of czarist Moscow, against two different but equally deadly foes. The pair must face a cunning con man and thief, reminiscent of the great French antihero, Ars
2008