Library Journal
In 1878, a horrible murder shakes Paris; Lord Littleby's skull has been cracked open, a precious statue is missing, and seven servants and two children in the household lie supine, dispatched by poison. Blustery "Papa" Gauche deduces that the killer will board the Leviathan, a luxurious cruise ship making its maiden voyage to India, and he arranges passage. In short order, he collects suspect passengers in a salon and attempts to entrap them, only to be quietly shown up by a young Russian diplomat named Erast Fandorin. Yes, Fandorin, star of The White Queen, Akunin's scintillating English-language debut, has returned in good form. This is another intelligent and deftly plotted work by Russian philologist/mystery writer Akunin, perhaps a bit more traditional in approach than The White Queen (as the publicity suggests, it's obviously an homage to Agatha Christie) but still full of surprises and incisive in its characterization and psychological depth. Essential for mystery collections.-Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal" Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews
This exemplary retro period puzzler, a Russian bestseller, pits two detectives against each other in a race to pick the murderer from a table of first-class passengers aboard a British steamship's maiden voyage. Two weeks before the 1878 sailing, that well-known collector Lord Littleby had been beaten to death in his Paris home by a ruthless killer who left no fewer than nine guards, servants, and children of the household dead on the floor below before making off with a golden statuette of Shiva. A clue clutched in Littleby's hand leads Commissioner Gustave Gauche to book passage on the Leviathan, en route to the mysterious East. On board, he swiftly narrows the list of primary suspects to four. Each of them-a troubled baronet, an officer in the Imperial Japanese Army, the pregnant wife of a Swiss banker, and a faded English spinster-is given alternate chapters in which to watch and describe the others, and the results can stand with the most ingenious Golden Age stories, as Papa Gauche and Russian diplomat Erast P. Fandorin (The Winter Queen, not reviewed) match wits to unmask the killer and explode each other's theories, as they do repeatedly over a mounting body count of avid dilettantes. The imperial/aristocratic milieu pays homage to Agatha Christie, the fiendlishly clever Chinese-box plotting to Ellery Queen. Akunin's most distinctive contribution is a tone of dryly amused irony that continues to the last sad line.