Erast Fandorin

Erast Petrovich Fandorin is a fictional 19th-century Russian detective and the hero of a series of Russian historical detective novels by Boris Akunin. The first Fandorin novel (The Winter Queen, Russian: Азазель) was published in Russia in 1998, and the latest and the last one in 2018 (Not Saying Goodbye, Russian: Не прощаюсь). More than 15 million copies of Fandorin novels have been sold as of May 2006, even though the novels were freely available from many Russian websites and the hard copies were relatively expensive by Russian standards. New books in the Fandorin series typically sell over 200,000 copies in the first week alone, with an unparalleled (for mystery novels) first edition of 50,000 copies for the first books to 500,000 copies for the last. The English translations of the novels have been critically acclaimed by, among others, Ruth Rendell. Background In the Soviet Union, detective novels enjoyed mass popularity. Although they were seen as a "low genre" by the communist officials, both local (such as Igor (Georgy) Vayner and Julian Semenov), and foreign detective novels have always been avidly coveted.