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The Winter Queen (novel)
Encyclopedia
The Winter Queen is the first novel
from the Erast Fandorin
series of historical detective novels, written by Russian author Boris Akunin
. It was subtitled конспирологический детектив ("conspiracy mystery").
(called "American roulette" in the novel) with another university student, Akhtyrtsev.
Fandorin tails Akhtyrtsev, who leads him to a sensuous dark-haired woman, Amalia Bezhetskaya, whom Fandorin recognizes from a picture in Kokorin's room. He follows Bezhetskaya to her home, where she spends her time toying with the many men who come to visit. At Bezhetskaya's home, Fandorin meets Count Zurov, an Army officer that Amalia seems fond of, and sees Akhtyrtsev again. Akhtyrtsev and Fandorin leave Amalia's house together to go drinking, and Akhtyrtsev reveals to Fandorin that the Russian roulette game between him and Kokorin was Bezhetskaya's idea. Just as the mystery of Kokorin's suicide seems to be solved, a mysterious white-eyed assassin stabs Akhtyrstev to death and tries to kill Fandorin, only to fail when his knife bounces off the corset
Fandorin is wearing. As he kills Akhtyrtsev, the white-eyed man hisses one word: "Azazel".
The murder of Akhtyrtsev brings a great deal of attention to what had seemed a routine case. Fandorin gets a new boss, Ivan Brilling, a sophisticated detective familiar with modern investigative techniques. Brilling believes that the murder is the work of a terrorist organization called "Azazel" that is operating in Moscow. He sends Fandorin off to interview Lady Astair, whose Astair House has now acquired Akhtyrtsev's fortune along with Kokorin's, because both students left all their assets to Astair House after Amalia Bezhetskaya encouraged them to do so. Lady Astair is helpful to Fandorin, who leaves her school convinced of her innocence and impressed by her charitable mission.
Next, Fandorin investigates Count Zurov. After Fandorin beats Zurov at cards, the count challenges him to a duel, but it turns out to be a practical joke on Fandorin, and the count befriends him. Zurov, believing Fandorin to be as much in love with Amalia as he is, and wishing that Fandorin will win her heart so that Zurov can let her go, reveals to Fandorin that she is staying at the Winter Queen Hotel in London.
Fandorin journeys to London, where he tracks down Bezhetskaya to a house in town. He sneaks into her room after she leaves it and finds a paper that appears to be a list of Azazel members all over the world, many of whom hold high ranks in government or the military. Fandorin is about to leave when Bezhetskaya catches him in her room. They struggle, a shot goes off in the dark, and Fandorin flees, believing that he has killed Amalia.
He has not, however, because Amalia and her henchmen kidnap Fandorin from his hotel room. Amalia leaves her henchmen to kill Fandorin, and they are about to do so when Count Zurov appears out of nowhere and saves Fandorin's life. Zurov admits to Fandorin that jealousy over Amalia led him to follow Fandorin to London. Fandorin assures Zurov that he is no rival for Amalia, and Zurov leaves to either kill her or "take her away somewhere".
Meanwhile, Fandorin hurriedly leaves for St. Petersburg to intercept the letter that Amalia has mailed to her Azazel contact there. He succeeds, and sees the letter delivered to Gerald Cunningham, a teacher at the Moscow Astair House. Fandorin reports this to Brilling, and they go together to arrest Cunningham--but Brilling shoots Cunningham dead, and reveals to Fandorin that he is also an agent of Azazel. Fandorin and Brilling struggle, and Brilling is killed.
Fandorin travels back to Moscow to continue the investigation. While on the way, he meets Elizaveta on the train, and finds out that she is as smitten by him as he is by her. Upon arrival in Moscow, he once again goes to see Lady Astair and asks her if she knows anything about Cunningham's activities with Azazel. While talking to Lady Astair, Fandorin suddenly realizes that Cunningham was too young to have started Azazel, and that Lady Astair is the real criminal mastermind.
Lady Astair confesses to Fandorin, admitting that she is the head of Azazel. She tells him that her Astair Houses are part of a plot to train bright young orphan boys to serve her and her group, which plans to eventually take over the world. She then tells one of her servants, the German professor Blank, to give Fandorin a lobotomy
so that they may retrain him as a member of Azazel, but Fandorin escapes and confronts Lady Astair, who is waiting for him with a bomb. Lady Astair traps him with her, but after Fandorin begs for his life, she lets him go in return for a promise to not hunt down her "children" from the Astair Houses. Lady Astair then appears to commit suicide with her bomb.
Fandorin, however, is ordered to help the campaign to root out members of Azazel in Russia, which he does. His guilt at breaking his promise mars his happiness on the day of his wedding to Elizaveta. After the newly married couple retreat to their hotel suite, a messenger brings Fandorin a package. Fandorin walks to the window and sees the messenger frantically running into a carriage driven by the white-eyed assassin that earlier tried to kill Fandorin. Fandorin jumps out his window in an attempt to arrest the killer, and thus escapes the bomb, which blows up and kills his young bride. The novel ends with a dazed Fandorin walking the streets of Moscow, his hair having turned gray at the temples due to his shock over his wife's death.
is the pen name of Grigory Chkartishvili, a Russian writer and academic who also worked as a translator of Japanese literature into Russian. Chkartishvili conceived of a series of detective novels demonstrating each of the genres of detective fiction, of which Chkartishvili found 16. Thus the Erast Fandorin
series is planned to run through 16 books. Eleven have been published in Russia; The Winter Queen is the first of five that have been translated into English.
Azazel was not an immediate success when it was published in 1998, selling only six thousand copies. However, the fifth novel in the Fandorin series, Special Assignments
, became a best-seller, as did all the other Fandorin novels thereafter. Azazel has sold fifteen million copies in Russia and many more all over the world.
in 2002. Ilya Noskov starred as Fandorin, and Akunin adapted his own novel into a screenplay.
Fyodor Bondarchuk
is set to direct the English-language film version of Azazel with Paul Verhoeven as producer. The screenplay
is written by Gerard Soeteman
, with whom Verhoeven made several films in the past. Actor Dan Stevens
is cast for the role of Erast Fandorin
and Milla Jovovich
for the role of Amalia Bezhetskaya.
The shooting was first planned for the summer of 2007, but Jovovich became pregnant. On May 22, 2007 a spokesperson of Paul Verhoeven announced that the shooting was postponed and would start in 2010. Pursuant to the merger of GFM and Seven Arts, plans were announced to beginning shooting The Winter Queen in August 2011. Filming locations are London
, Saint Petersburg
, and the Babelsberg Studios
in Berlin
.
on BBC Radio 4
, in 10, 15-minute parts.
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
from the Erast Fandorin
Erast Fandorin
Erast Petrovich Fandorin is a fictional 19th-century Russian detective and the hero of a series of Russian historical detective novels by Boris Akunin. The first novel was published in Russia in 1998, and the latest was published in December 2009...
series of historical detective novels, written by Russian author Boris Akunin
Boris Akunin
Boris Akunin is the pen name of Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili , a Russian writer. He is an essayist, literary translator and writer of detective fiction.-Life and career:...
. It was subtitled конспирологический детектив ("conspiracy mystery").
Plot summary
The novel opens on 13 May 1876 with a university student, Pyotr Kokorin, committing suicide in the public park in front of a beautiful young noblewoman, Elizaveta von Evert-Kolokoltseva. His will leaves his large fortune to the newly opened Moscow chapter of Astair House, an international network of schools for orphan boys founded by an English noblewoman, Lady Astair. The apparently open-and-shut suicide case falls to inexperienced 20-year-old detective Erast Fandorin. He interviews Elizaveta, and immediately falls in love with her. Further investigation reveals that Kokorin was playing Russian rouletteRussian roulette
Russian roulette is a potentially lethal game of chance in which participants place a single round in a revolver, spin the cylinder, place the muzzle against their head and pull the trigger...
(called "American roulette" in the novel) with another university student, Akhtyrtsev.
Fandorin tails Akhtyrtsev, who leads him to a sensuous dark-haired woman, Amalia Bezhetskaya, whom Fandorin recognizes from a picture in Kokorin's room. He follows Bezhetskaya to her home, where she spends her time toying with the many men who come to visit. At Bezhetskaya's home, Fandorin meets Count Zurov, an Army officer that Amalia seems fond of, and sees Akhtyrtsev again. Akhtyrtsev and Fandorin leave Amalia's house together to go drinking, and Akhtyrtsev reveals to Fandorin that the Russian roulette game between him and Kokorin was Bezhetskaya's idea. Just as the mystery of Kokorin's suicide seems to be solved, a mysterious white-eyed assassin stabs Akhtyrstev to death and tries to kill Fandorin, only to fail when his knife bounces off the corset
Corset
A corset is a garment worn to hold and shape the torso into a desired shape for aesthetic or medical purposes...
Fandorin is wearing. As he kills Akhtyrtsev, the white-eyed man hisses one word: "Azazel".
The murder of Akhtyrtsev brings a great deal of attention to what had seemed a routine case. Fandorin gets a new boss, Ivan Brilling, a sophisticated detective familiar with modern investigative techniques. Brilling believes that the murder is the work of a terrorist organization called "Azazel" that is operating in Moscow. He sends Fandorin off to interview Lady Astair, whose Astair House has now acquired Akhtyrtsev's fortune along with Kokorin's, because both students left all their assets to Astair House after Amalia Bezhetskaya encouraged them to do so. Lady Astair is helpful to Fandorin, who leaves her school convinced of her innocence and impressed by her charitable mission.
Next, Fandorin investigates Count Zurov. After Fandorin beats Zurov at cards, the count challenges him to a duel, but it turns out to be a practical joke on Fandorin, and the count befriends him. Zurov, believing Fandorin to be as much in love with Amalia as he is, and wishing that Fandorin will win her heart so that Zurov can let her go, reveals to Fandorin that she is staying at the Winter Queen Hotel in London.
Fandorin journeys to London, where he tracks down Bezhetskaya to a house in town. He sneaks into her room after she leaves it and finds a paper that appears to be a list of Azazel members all over the world, many of whom hold high ranks in government or the military. Fandorin is about to leave when Bezhetskaya catches him in her room. They struggle, a shot goes off in the dark, and Fandorin flees, believing that he has killed Amalia.
He has not, however, because Amalia and her henchmen kidnap Fandorin from his hotel room. Amalia leaves her henchmen to kill Fandorin, and they are about to do so when Count Zurov appears out of nowhere and saves Fandorin's life. Zurov admits to Fandorin that jealousy over Amalia led him to follow Fandorin to London. Fandorin assures Zurov that he is no rival for Amalia, and Zurov leaves to either kill her or "take her away somewhere".
Meanwhile, Fandorin hurriedly leaves for St. Petersburg to intercept the letter that Amalia has mailed to her Azazel contact there. He succeeds, and sees the letter delivered to Gerald Cunningham, a teacher at the Moscow Astair House. Fandorin reports this to Brilling, and they go together to arrest Cunningham--but Brilling shoots Cunningham dead, and reveals to Fandorin that he is also an agent of Azazel. Fandorin and Brilling struggle, and Brilling is killed.
Fandorin travels back to Moscow to continue the investigation. While on the way, he meets Elizaveta on the train, and finds out that she is as smitten by him as he is by her. Upon arrival in Moscow, he once again goes to see Lady Astair and asks her if she knows anything about Cunningham's activities with Azazel. While talking to Lady Astair, Fandorin suddenly realizes that Cunningham was too young to have started Azazel, and that Lady Astair is the real criminal mastermind.
Lady Astair confesses to Fandorin, admitting that she is the head of Azazel. She tells him that her Astair Houses are part of a plot to train bright young orphan boys to serve her and her group, which plans to eventually take over the world. She then tells one of her servants, the German professor Blank, to give Fandorin a lobotomy
Lobotomy
Lobotomy "; τομή – tomē: "cut/slice") is a neurosurgical procedure, a form of psychosurgery, also known as a leukotomy or leucotomy . It consists of cutting the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex, the anterior part of the frontal lobes of the brain...
so that they may retrain him as a member of Azazel, but Fandorin escapes and confronts Lady Astair, who is waiting for him with a bomb. Lady Astair traps him with her, but after Fandorin begs for his life, she lets him go in return for a promise to not hunt down her "children" from the Astair Houses. Lady Astair then appears to commit suicide with her bomb.
Fandorin, however, is ordered to help the campaign to root out members of Azazel in Russia, which he does. His guilt at breaking his promise mars his happiness on the day of his wedding to Elizaveta. After the newly married couple retreat to their hotel suite, a messenger brings Fandorin a package. Fandorin walks to the window and sees the messenger frantically running into a carriage driven by the white-eyed assassin that earlier tried to kill Fandorin. Fandorin jumps out his window in an attempt to arrest the killer, and thus escapes the bomb, which blows up and kills his young bride. The novel ends with a dazed Fandorin walking the streets of Moscow, his hair having turned gray at the temples due to his shock over his wife's death.
Fandorin series
Boris AkuninBoris Akunin
Boris Akunin is the pen name of Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili , a Russian writer. He is an essayist, literary translator and writer of detective fiction.-Life and career:...
is the pen name of Grigory Chkartishvili, a Russian writer and academic who also worked as a translator of Japanese literature into Russian. Chkartishvili conceived of a series of detective novels demonstrating each of the genres of detective fiction, of which Chkartishvili found 16. Thus the Erast Fandorin
Erast Fandorin
Erast Petrovich Fandorin is a fictional 19th-century Russian detective and the hero of a series of Russian historical detective novels by Boris Akunin. The first novel was published in Russia in 1998, and the latest was published in December 2009...
series is planned to run through 16 books. Eleven have been published in Russia; The Winter Queen is the first of five that have been translated into English.
Azazel was not an immediate success when it was published in 1998, selling only six thousand copies. However, the fifth novel in the Fandorin series, Special Assignments
Special Assignments
Special Assignments: The Further Adventures of Erast Fandorin is a book by Russian author Boris Akunin, published in 2007. The book contains two novellas featuring his character Erast Fandorin: The Jack of Spades and The Decorator...
, became a best-seller, as did all the other Fandorin novels thereafter. Azazel has sold fifteen million copies in Russia and many more all over the world.
Film adaptations
Azazel was filmed for Russian televisionAzazel (film)
Azazel is a Russian made for TV adaptation of Boris Akunin's introductory 'Erast Fandorin' novel The Winter Queen.-Plot summary:This historical detective story features a young police inspector, Erast Fandorin...
in 2002. Ilya Noskov starred as Fandorin, and Akunin adapted his own novel into a screenplay.
Fyodor Bondarchuk
Fyodor Bondarchuk
Fyodor Sergeyevich Bondarchuk is a Russian film director and actor. He is the director of the acclaimed film The 9th Company, and producer of the 2006 film Heat, where he starred as himself with his mother Irina Skobtseva....
is set to direct the English-language film version of Azazel with Paul Verhoeven as producer. The screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
is written by Gerard Soeteman
Gerard Soeteman
Gerard Soeteman is a Dutch screenwriter. He worked together with Paul Verhoeven on several films, such as Turkish Delight and Black Book...
, with whom Verhoeven made several films in the past. Actor Dan Stevens
Dan Stevens
Daniel Jonathan Stevens is a British actor.-Education:Stevens was educated at Tonbridge School, an independent school in the market town of Tonbridge in Kent, in South East England, followed by Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he read English...
is cast for the role of Erast Fandorin
Erast Fandorin
Erast Petrovich Fandorin is a fictional 19th-century Russian detective and the hero of a series of Russian historical detective novels by Boris Akunin. The first novel was published in Russia in 1998, and the latest was published in December 2009...
and Milla Jovovich
Milla Jovovich
Milla Jovovich December 17, 1975)is an American model, actress, musician, and fashion designer. Over her career, she has appeared in a number of science fiction and action-themed films, for which music channel VH1 has referred to her as the "reigning queen of kick-butt".Milla Jovovich began...
for the role of Amalia Bezhetskaya.
The shooting was first planned for the summer of 2007, but Jovovich became pregnant. On May 22, 2007 a spokesperson of Paul Verhoeven announced that the shooting was postponed and would start in 2010. Pursuant to the merger of GFM and Seven Arts, plans were announced to beginning shooting The Winter Queen in August 2011. Filming locations are London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, and the Babelsberg Studios
Babelsberg Studios
The Studio Babelsberg, located in Potsdam-Babelsberg, Germany, is the oldest large-scale film studio in the world. Founded in 1912, it covers an area of about . Hundreds of films, including Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel were filmed there...
in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
.
Radio Adaptation
Between October 13, 2003 and October 24, 2003, an abridged version was broadcast as the Book at BedtimeBook at Bedtime
Book at Bedtime is a long-running radio programme on BBC Radio 4, broadcast each weekday evening at 10.45–11.00 pm.Book at Bedtime offers fiction including modern classics, new works by leading writers and literature from around the world. Books are usually abridged and serialised each evening for...
on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
, in 10, 15-minute parts.
External links
- Podcast of Boris Akunin talking about The Winter Queen on the BBC's World Book ClubWorld Book ClubWorld Book Club is a radio programme on the BBC World Service. Each edition of the programme, which is broadcast on the first Saturday of the month with repeats into the following Monday, features a famous author discussing one of his or her books, often the most well-known one, with the public...
- January Magazine, "Muscovy Dick", retrieved 17 August 2006.
- The New York Times, "If Pushkin Had Written Mysteries", retrieved 18 August 2006.
- Entertainment Weekly review
- Leon Aron, "A Champion for the Bourgeoisie: Reinventing Virtue and Citizenship in Boris Akunin's Novels", retrieved 12 September 2006
- Complete online text of Azazel in Russian at Akunin's official website