General Khrapov, newly appointed Governor-General of Siberia and soon-to-be Minister of the Interior, is murdered in his official saloon carriage on his way from St Petersburg to Moscow. The killer, disguised as Fandorin, leaves a knife thrust up to the hilt in his victims chest and escapes through the window of the carriage. Can Fandorin escape suspicion? A battle of wills and ideals, revolutionaries and traditionalists and good versus evil. All the usual Akunin fingerprints are here - wonderful period settings, delirious plotting and that wry, understated sense of humour