In 1900 Moscow is abuzz with a rash of suicides, and rumours that a suicide club is in operation somewhere in the city. The Lovers of Death, a group of misfits under the charismatic leadership of a man named Prospero, meet weekly to discuss which of them will be the next to meet the long-desired embrace of death. Erast Fandorin joins the Lovers of Death in the guise of a Japanese prince and attempts to get to the bottom of it all.

The story is told from the points of view of two of the Lovers: Columbine, an impressionable girl from the country and an unnamed informer who is writing reports for the police. There are the usual twists and turns, although the ending was a little drawn-out and implausible. Akunin's next book in the series is He Lover of Death, which tells the same story from a different point of view, and I'm keen to see where he goes with that.

Russian poets found a suicide cult, mayhem ensues, various agents with different agendas try to end the ungodly epidemic - this is a rough summary of the plot of Akunin's mystery. This author is not only a very successful translator and writer of detective fiction, he is also an outspoken critic of Putin, and while "She Lover of Death" does not directly address the current political situation, the central theme is psychological manipulation, in this case the ability to convince people that death is an actual person who summons his disciples to a beautiful demise. Yes, the victims in this crime story do apparently kill themselves, they buy into a deception that is crafted in a way that appeals to their personal urges and longings - go figure. Btw: "Akunin" means "bad person" in Japanese, and B. Akunin refers to the Russian anarchist Michail Bakunin.

But back to the story: The plot largely revolves around a young woman from the Siberian province who comes to Moscow trying to re-invent herself as the mysterious "Columbine". Out of curiosity, she joins the suicide cult, the "Lovers of Death", and becomes the prime example showing the reader how a person comes to buy into such an outrageous scam. The story is partly written from her perspective, and in other parts composed of newspaper articles about the suicides and the club, of reports by an anonymous informant to the police and of a third-person narrative.

The changing form gives the novel a nice dynamic, altough the story does have some lenghts. Bit by bit, the author reveals the intentions of the club's doge and several members, questioning who the club members really are and what drives their behavior. In the end (and in classic style), we get a big reveal.

I really liked that this murder mystery contemplates psychological violence, and not by scaring or pressuring the victims, but by giving them something that is framed to appear like love, beauty and adventure, but in truth only follows a manipulative agenda that is all about power. In the middle section, the text offers some unnecessary detours that result in lenghts, the poems written by the cult members read like parodies of Andreas Gryphius' texts, and the female figures are not exactly painted in a progressive light, but this is a smart mystery that is fun to read.

The transalation was not very fluid.It distracted me from the story.
This book had a lot of people in it.The main character Columbine travels to Moscow to reinvent herself.She joins a club where the members await death by suicide.Fandorin the detective joins this club to solve a mystery.
Thankyou Netgalley for this ArC