Boris Akunin’s "Black City," a summary Automatic translate

Written in 2012, the novel takes place on the eve of World War I. It concludes with an unprecedented defeat and the seemingly invincible protagonist’s death, a bullet to the head from his own ally. The book is part of the popular detective series "The Adventures of Erast Fandorin." It is the fourteenth installment in the series, continuing the story of the brilliant detective who previously solved crimes in "Azazel," "The Turkish Gambit," "The Death of Achilles," and other novels in the series.

Failure in Yalta

In 1914, Erast Petrovich Fandorin is in Yalta. The detective is working for the Anton Chekhov Heritage Commission. General Lombadze, the mayor of Yalta, bursts into his room. A Bolshevik revolutionary known to the Secret Service as Odysseus, he is planning an assassination attempt on the emperor. Lombadze attempted to use double agent Athena to catch the terrorist red-handed, but Odysseus disappeared with the sniper rifle she gave him.

Fandorin, accompanied by Colonel Spiridonov, the chief of the palace police, sets out to search. Spiridonov is certain the criminal is holed up in the lemon grove. Erast Petrovich discovers the trap too late. A sniper kills Spiridonov with a well-aimed shot. Odysseus masterfully outsmarted the police, eliminating his true target. Fandorin returns to Moscow dejected. Conversing with his faithful servant Masa, Erast Petrovich analyzes the few leads. Odysseus mentioned a certain black city over the phone and arranged a meeting with a lame man. The detective sets off for Baku.

Ambushes and Baku customs

The train arrives in a hot Transcaucasian city. Fandorin is attacked right on the platform. An unknown assailant pushes him under the moving train, and below, a one-armed killer with a dagger awaits the detective. Using Japanese martial arts techniques, Erast Petrovich fights back. The one-armed man escapes.

Baku is striking with its contrasts of fabulous wealth and abject poverty, European architecture and strict Asian traditions. Oil workers are on strike in the city, and the atmosphere is tense. Fandorin learns that his wife, Klara Lunnaya, is filming a film by the exalted director Leon Art. The couple’s relationship has long since cooled, and the detective studiously avoids meeting the actress, immersing himself in a philosophical diary based on the Japanese system of "Nikki-do."

During filming in the Old Town, a one-armed sniper attempts to assassinate Fandorin again. Erast Petrovich and Masa pursue the shooter, but find only an abandoned rifle with a telescopic sight. To clarify the situation, the detective turns to gendarme lieutenant colonel Shubin. This corpulent and pragmatic officer knows all about the city’s shadowy life. Shubin advises them to be wary of local magnates and radical political groups.

Soon, Fandorin attends a lavish reception at the dacha of Mesrop Artashesov, a wealthy oil industrialist. There, he meets Saadat Validbekova, a businesslike and powerful woman who confidently runs her own oil business.

Black Well

That night, on the way from his country residence, Fandorin’s convertible is shot at. Masa is seriously wounded in the chest. The attackers tie up Erast Petrovich and throw him into an abandoned oil well. His slow descent into the viscous liquid promises a painful death.

Suddenly, a huge man in a black Circassian coat appears. He pulls Fandorin out. The savior calls himself Kara-Gasym. He is a local gochi, who considers himself a just defender of the poor. Gasim declares to the detective, "I followed you to rob you." The robber decided to intervene, outraged by the brutality of the execution.

They take the wounded Japanese man to a healer. Gochi and the detective form an alliance. Gasim discovers that the attack was orchestrated by the one-armed anarchist Khachatur, hiding in a country villa. They conduct a night raid on the bandits’ hideout. Gasim shoots Khachatur, ruining Fandorin’s plan to interrogate the leader about his connection to Odysseus, known in Baku as the Woodpecker.

Abduction and assault

Meanwhile, Saadat Validbekova faces a real catastrophe. Unknown assailants kidnap her young son, Tural, along with his tutor, Franz Kaunitz. The bandits’ demand is a firm refusal to make concessions to the strikers. If Saadat doesn’t bring about a complete shutdown of her operations, the boy will be killed. In desperation, the widow begs Fandorin for help.

The detective examines the Austrian tutor’s room and constructs a chain of events. Suspects include the gendarme Shubin, who wants to foment a strike for career advancement. Erast Petrovich, Saadat, Gasim, and the mute eunuch Zafar head to the Kater Club on the coast, where the kidnappers called from.

An ambush awaits them there. A fierce firefight ensues. The bandits attempt to escape on a speedboat. Fandorin pursues them through the burning sea, dotted with fiery patches of gas gushing from the bottom of the bay. After a lengthy chase, the criminals disembark and take refuge in a secret underground passage leading to Artashesov’s villa.

The group captures the militants. Artashesov admits to orchestrating the child’s kidnapping to coerce Validbekova into solidarity against the rioting workers. Tural is returned to his mother. The magnate also admits to hiring Khachatur to eliminate Fandorin, fearing retaliation for his nephew Leon’s affair with Klara Lunnaya.

The True Puppeteer

Erast Petrovich realizes the magnate is lying. Artashesov is simply covering for Shubin. The detective finds the lieutenant colonel at a summer casino. The gendarme doesn’t deny it. He reveals his plan to paralyze the empire with a strike, then crush it with a firm hand and seize the post of governor of the Caucasus. Shubin agrees to hand over Dyatl, the Bolshevik chief coordinator who orchestrated the high-profile assassination of Spiridonov.

They travel to an empty workers’ settlement. During the assault on a house, Dyatel detonates a grenade, losing both arms. Shubin attempts to shoot Fandorin, wounds Gasim, and escapes through a window. Gochi catches up with and kills the treacherous gendarme. Fandorin pronounces the armless Bolshevik dead.

Saadat Validbekova, impressed by the detective’s intellect, offers him her heart and a business partnership. Erast Petrovich politely declines the offer. He then falls into the hands of agents of the Austrian consul Lust, who are planning to sabotage oil production. The spy Weissmuller subdues the detective with a chokehold. Recovering from his entanglement, Fandorin kills the agent with a precise kick and frees himself.

Leon Art informs the detective that the entire film crew was kidnapped by highlanders. Fandorin discovers that Artashesov simply hid the filmmakers in the old fortress to separate his nephew from Klara.

Deputy Minister of the Interior General Zhukovsky arrives at the hotel. War is brewing in Europe. Austria is ready to accept a Russian investigator to investigate the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, and Emperor Franz Joseph’s choice has fallen on Fandorin.

But before leaving, Gasim brings stunning news: Woodpecker was seen alive at a government-owned kerosene station.

The finale

Fandorin unravels the underground’s monstrous plan. Woodpecker staged the death of an embezzler, cutting off his hands to prevent identification. The Bolsheviks’ true goal is to destroy the pumping station and pipeline. Without kerosene, the country will plunge into primordial darkness, inevitably sparking revolution.

Erast Petrovich infiltrates the heavily guarded station. He catches saboteurs planting a powerful time bomb. One of them turns out to be a real one-armed bandit nicknamed "Crab." In a brief hand-to-hand fight, the detective kills Crab with a miniature pistol. Woodpecker flees. Fandorin defuses the bomb ten seconds before the deadly explosion.

The detective pursues Woodpecker through the dark streets of Black City. The villain lures him into a trap, but Fandorin blinds him with a pair of burning, oil-soaked pants, forcing him to lay down his arms. The revolutionary is arrested and handed over to the police station.

Erast Petrovich visits Masa in the hospital, bids him farewell, and prepares for his immediate departure for Vienna. He returns to the dark house, where he is knocked unconscious by a powerful blow to the head. Waking up tightly bound, Fandorin sees Woodpecker and Gasim.

Gochi makes a terrible confession. He has long been a devoted student of Woodpecker, with whom he shared a cell. Gasim deftly manipulated Fandorin, using him to eliminate unruly anarchists and provide reliable cover for his mentor. Woodpecker demands that Fandorin swear to leave Russia forever and never interfere with the revolution. Erast Petrovich categorically refuses. Gasim declares to the detective, "I am a man of honor!" Gochi obeys Woodpecker’s order and shoots Fandorin in the head. The book ends with a terrifying fairy tale, echoing inexorably in the protagonist’s fading consciousness.