This is made up of two stories. I finished the first one months ago and just started the second on (8/5/15). Just delightful right off the bat. Love the characters. ( )

Whether it was my lowered expectations or my mood or the book itself, I was pleasantly surprised by this 5th book in the Erast Fandorin series.

The book consisted of two loosely connected novellas: "The Jack of Spades" and "The Decorator". In both of these, Fandorin is joined by Anisii Tulipov - a character I much enjoyed. Of the 2 novellas, I preferred the first one which was clever and humorous. The second story was much darker and more shocking ( )

Two Erast Fandorin mysteries for the price of one. In the first our hero is tasked with tracking down the “Jack of Spades”, a con man adept at disguising himself and his female assistant to bilk people out of their money via various schemes. In the second, “The Decorator” is a brutal serial killer of prostitutes who lays out the internal organs of his victims after murdering them, an act he views as “making them beautiful” before sending their souls off to God. In both stories, Fandorin is joined by Anisii Tulipov, an assistant he grooms after transferring him out of a miserable job. Tulipov shows immediate promise and also provides some comic relief, such as when he’s subjected to electric shocks to the crotch during undercover work early on.

Fandorin is likable – tough, smart, a ladies man and imminently self-assured, but at the same time, honest and kind. The stories are taut and move along well. His adversaries not only match wits with him but also turn on him and his loved ones, presenting an additional element of danger to the reader. The stories are shocking at times in the violence of the murders, and also in the plot twists – a couple of things in “The Decorator” (and its ending) were quite surprising to me. I can’t say that I see how it would be possible for a reader to figure out whodunit in that case, but then again this isn’t my usual genre and I’m a fairly simple reader.

My only real knock on the book is its occasional anti-semitic reference; these are of course true to the period as anyone who has read 19th century fiction (Russian or otherwise) can attest, but this would have been nice to leave in the 19th century, and not carry forward as Akunin sometimes does.

Overall, though – entertaining and fun reading.

Quotes; just a couple:
On getting used to pain:
“’Working in a graveyard, you need a callous heart,’ he said in his quiet voice, with a compassionate glance at the exhausted Tulipov. ‘Any folk will grow sick and weary if he’s shown his own end every day: Look there, servant of God, you’ll be rotting just like that. But the Lord is merciful. He gives the digger calluses on his hand so he won’t wear the flesh down to the bone, and them as is faced with human woes, he gives them calluses on their hearts, too. So as their hearts won’t get worn away. You’ll get used to it, too, mister.’”

On listening:
“Listening properly was a kind of art. You had to imagine that you were an empty bottle, a transparent vessel connected with the person you were talking to via an invisible tube, and let the contents of the other person flow into you a drop at a time, so that you were filled with liquid that was the same color and strength, the same composition. To stop being yourself for a while and become him. And then you would come to understand that person’s essential being, and you would know in advance what he was going to say and what he was going to do.” ( )

Two excellent additions to the Fandorin mysteries, both seem like full length tales as they pack a lot of detail in. Nice touch with the connection with Jack the Ripper as well. ( )

http://bibliophibian.blogspot.com/2009/03/fifteen-special-assignments-boris.html ( )