Every Christmas for the past few years, I have been fortunate enough to receive a novel by the Russian author Boris Akunin as a present from my parents. If you have never heard of him, Boris Akunin is the pseudonym of a gentleman whose real name I should not like to hazard a guess at spelling, but who nevertheless writes detective stories so excellent that they have not only been an enormous hit in the Russian-speaking world, but have also been translated into a whole host of other languages, including English. From rather obscure beginnings, Akunin’s popularity now seems to have blossomed in the UK, and you should be able to find an entire row of his novels in any decent branch of Waterstones (more…)