The Winter Queen (Book Review Sample)

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The Winter Queen
The winter queen is a novel authored by Boris Akunin who is a Russian.
The novel starts with a young man who happens to be a student shooting himself in public, an act of suicide as presumed. The death of the student was a result of other undefined factors. The police department in Russia which was involved in solving crimes by unveiling truths had the case files in their custody. Despite the police department being the central place where investigations on crimes were initiated, cases were not seriously taken. Case files were not worked on and the station seemed sleepy.
The detectives in the department were not committed to their work as they were obligated to. They took in unqualified personnel as a police detective. Fandorin who is a young detective is inexperienced. In his idle sitting in the police department, he comes across a case which was deemed as "usual”. This case was that of the student who committed suicide on a public garden. He however does not let it lay unattended to. Despite him being inexperienced, he shows the case to his boss who gives him a go ahead to carry out investigation on the case.
Fandorin who joined the police department due to circumstances he couldn’t avoid. He was orphaned at the age of nineteen. He first joined the police department as a clerk. his gambling father could not have his college fees paid he died and left behind him lots of debts, so Fandorin did not have the chance to get to college.
The police department boss does not take into consideration the fact that Fandorin is inexperienced to work on such a case. Fandorin is forced to make trips to places as far as London from Russia. He interacts with dangerous people in the line of duty. His life gets into grave danger as he is confronted by the bad guys.
Due to the dangers and the delicacy of the case being handled by Fandorin, the inexperienced detective, he tries to handle the case with another detective who acts as backup. However, the other detective is killed in the line of duty trying to bring out the truth in the case at hand. The detectives are not safe during their duty.
Fandorin is also held hostage by one of the bad guys from his hotel as he investigates them in his bid to unveil the truth behind committing suicide by the young student. In addition the detective is also attacked in his hotel room where a bomb packaged was delivered at his door by criminals.
In the novel, the crime rates are high. The suicide committed by the young student in the public garden was caused by some hidden crimes no one knew of. The student was involved in the game of gambling. His mates in gambling had crossed paths with him. Due to this and other threats, the student committed suicide.
Most crimes were facilitated by senior government officials and military personnel. This was what made the illegal terrorist groups in the novel to be strong and widespread.
A terrorist group which was widely spread existed. The group had many members and was well organized. It had leaders who gave orders on operations to be carried. The group happened to deliver a packaged bomb at the detective’s doorstep. This was in attempt to finish him off as he tried to bring out the truth behind the student committing suicide. In the explosion, the detective’s newly wedded lovely wife Elizabeta was killed.
The group also carried out physical killing. One of the student’s female friends was killed by the terrorist group member through stabbing using a knife. This was as she tried to tell the detective of the truth behind the death of her student friend. The group was thus trying to hide their criminal activities through killing.
One of the leaders of the terrorist group lady Astair also confesses to the detective of her involvement with the terrorist group activities. She also commits suicide after her confession for fear of her life.
Orphaned children are taken into custody by well-wishers, among them lady Astair. She pretends to take care of them and give them a safe place. On the contrary, she selects the bright boys and recruits them into their terrorist group. This was in a bid to expand the...