According to the blurb, Akunin has been compared with Gogol, Tolstoy and Conan Doyle, which might be stretching it a bit, but he does produce an unusual variation on the standard historical crime novel. Death in this instance is the moniker of a beautiful and dangerous young woman, whose lovers always meet with untimely ends. The first to fall under her spell is a young orphan, Senka, who has escaped from his vicious uncle and fallen in with a criminal gang led by a famous bandit the Prince, also bewitched by Death. In fact Erast Fandorin, hero of Akunin's series, hardly makes an appearance until halfway through the book, when he too is ensnared. Meanwhile, Senka has discovered a hoard of treasure buried in the mysterious underworld labyrinth in the Khitrovka district, and a swath of unfortunates are being horribly murdered. Whether Moscow in 1900 was anything like Akunin's imagined world is hardly important  he's not Tolstoy, but he writes a cracking good story, full of vivid and interesting characters, and the pace never flags for a moment.