Just when I thought Boris Akunin’s Erast Fandorin series had reached a suavely thrilling peak, The State Counsellor sees it effortlessly move to a yet  higher level. Once again Akunin has written a seemingly frivolous entertainment that  perfectly resonates with our own times, in this case political terrorism during the twilight years of Empire.

A high ranking Imperial official becomes the latest victim of an ongoing terrorist campaign and State Counsellor, Erast Fandorin must stop the terrorist cell responsible. However, for once  Fandorin is outshone by the seeming brilliance of a counterpart from the Imperial capital, St Petersburg. Semi-sidelined how will he solve the case before anarchy rules in Moscow? How will he preserve his own position and that of his patron against the threat from St Petersburg?  All this against the backdrop of an Imperial state being challenged from below and responding in ever more arbitrarily authoritarian ways.

Every single Boris Akunin book is a thrill and each is thrilling for a dozen different reasons. The one thing that connects all of them however, is the fluent brilliance of Akunin’s writing. Is there a more dazzlingly entertaining author at work today than Boris Akunin?  The State Counsellor is a worthy addition to a terrific series of novels and I am already counting the days before the next in the series, The Coronation, is published later this year. Now if only they would get round to releasing subtitled versions of the Russian Fandorin movies…

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