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Extracurricular Akunin As in the case of Altyn Tolobas , the first of Boris Akunin's novels featuring Nicholas Fandorin (the great-grandson of his Imperial Russia great detective Erast Fandorin), the first volume of this two part follow-up is very much concerned with blood-lines, with heritage and with its relevance to what it means to be Russian in the present day. Like the earlier book this is brought out in Extracurricular Reading (as its Russian title translates) by a comparison in alternative chapters between Nika in the present day and the adventures of one of his other ancestors in the past. That ancestor this time is Danila Fondorin (a variation on the name of Von Dorn, Cornelius Von Dorn being the ancestor who brought the bloodline to Russia in Altyn Tolobas ), a doctor and former personal secretary to Catherine the Great. The historical part of the story however mostly focuses on another unusual character, Mitia, a gifted six-year old, well-read and with a prowess in math...

Altyn Tolobas features a new Akunin character, Nicholas Fandorin, the modern-day English great-grandson of the famous detective Erast Fandorin. A distinguished English historian, the news of the discovery of a piece of parchment brings Nicholas back to his ancestral homeland of Moscow on a personal investigation. The document appears to be the other half of a will he has in his possession written by one of his ancestors - Cornelius von Dorn who started the Russian line of the family - and Nicholas hopes that piecing the complete document together will reveal some great secrets in his family’s past. He no sooner sets foot in Russia however than he is involved in a lot of trouble. A powerful figure in the Russian mafia is also interested in the contents of the document, and Nicholas finds himself pursued around Moscow by a deadly assassin. Nicholas’s story is mirrored to some extent in alternate chapters by the story of his ancestor and founder of the family’s Russian branch of the fami...