Russian author Akunin's 10+ books featuring 19th-century sleuth Erast Fandorin are hugely popular in his native Russia, and have been gradually appearing in English translation. A few years ago I read the first in the series (The Winter Queen), and didn't see what the fuss was about -- it was a pretty basic penny dreadful. I missed the second book (The Turkish Gambit), but here picked up the trail of Fandorin on board luxury liner making its maiden voyage from France to Japan in the spring of 1878.

The book starts by introducing a French police detective who's in charge of investigating the murder of ten people in connection with the theft of a fabulous Indian gold statue. In a rather clumsy plot device, one of the victims grasps a distinctive gold lapel-pin in his cold clenched fist. This is a pin given to designate first-class passengers on the maiden voyage of the all mod cons vessel "The Leviathan." So, the detective joins the ship and has the passengers who don't have their gold pin assigned to his dining room/salon. The story then unfolds over the following month at sea, as he attempts to uncover the culprit. Actually, this is one of the problems of the book -- the detective doesn't actually do any detecting. His main approach is to sit back and wait for the killer to reveal himself.

If this sounds a lot like one of those classic Agatha Christie stories, set over a stormy weekend at an isolated country house, or perhaps Murder on the Orient Express, well, that's pretty much exactly what this is a poor imitation of. Only instead of a condescending Belgian detective, it's a condescending French detective, and we've moved from the rails to the sea. The cast of suspects is the usual outsize bunch (and of course each has something to hide!), about as well sketched out as the characters from the Clue boardgame. The story shifts perspective a fair amount, as we get portions of it from the mouths, minds, letters, and journals of each. This method of storytelling doesn't serve Akunin well, however. His hero Fandorin is present, and certainly plays a crucial role, but never emerges as the protagonist -- he's lost in a sea of poorly conceived caricatures. Indeed, the author's treatment of the various nationalities (French, German, British, Japanese) is chock full of chauvinism which is clearly intended to highlight the Fandorin's own fine Russian qualities. It's not really insulting so much as just vaguely childish.

There are a few nice pieces of humor, and one or two of the plot's twists and turns are clever, but for the most part, this is a very tiresome voyage. Ultimately, it's not a very interesting mystery and the best that can be said of it is that it's a workmanlike pastiche.