... a sparkling romp of a story... [with a] witty and beautifully constructed plot ... The Winter Queen has echoes of the plots of the nineteenth-century classics all Russians know: duels, reckless gambling, superfluous men and mysterious beauties whose salons are full of despairing admirers

He's [Fandorin] ... an engaging personality - conscientious, honourable, and pleasingly naive. Hence one feels the instant appeal of this gentle mystery, and appreciates the extraordinary Russian success of Boris Akunin ... It's a parable about the death of hope and innocence, as well as an effectively concocted story

Boris Akunin has written a series of novels set in Tsarist Russia in the 1970s and featuring Erast Fandorin, a naive young police investigator ... the story propels the idealistic Fandorin into the company of enigmatic and beautiful women, devious conspirators and a most unlikely Svengali intent on world domination ... This may not be what we expect from Russian fiction, but it's all very fast-moving and enjoyable

The mixture of the grisly and the lighthearted is characteristic of Boris Akunin, who in Russia is roughly the counterpart of John Grisham ... The Winter Queen is as delicate and elegant as a Fabergé egg