Sometimes when an author writes a series of books featuring the same hero, he or she gets lazy. In quite a few cases the author merely tells the same story over and over again, but changes the scenery in hopes that a different location or an occasional new character will fool us. It may take a couple of stories to catch on, but sooner or later you'll find yourself being able to predict exactly how the story will unfold.

Mystery stories can be the worst culprits, as it seems once an author has found a formula for success, they're unwilling to tamper with it. The lead character is worse than the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for their ability to always get their man (or woman, as the case may be) with the only mystery being the reader's wonder as to why they bothered to read the book in first place when it was identical to the one before and the one before that.

There are exceptions to the rule and there are some authors who are able to make each story featuring their character completely different from the previous one. What I've found in those cases is that the writer has the versatility to make each scenario they place their character into unique enough that it allows us to view different facets of his or her personality with each outing.

Such is the case with the stories by Russian author Boris Akunin that feature Erast Fandorin. In each of the four novels that Fandorin has been in to this point, Akunin has yet to allow his adventures to become formulaic. More importantly, in spite of Fandorin's obvious skills and special talents, he is never anything but human, as he is continually proving himself as fallible as the rest of us.

When last we left Fandorin, he had barely escaped with his life while solving the mystery surrounding the death of an old army comrade. After years of travel abroad, serving as an attaché in the Russian Embassy in Japan, he has once again settled in Moscow where he holds the title of Deputy to the Governor of Moscow for Special Assignments. It is his job to investigate those cases considered either too sensitive for the regular police force to handle or that the Governor decides to take a personal interest in. It's two cases of this type that Akunin's latest Fandorin novel is named for.