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The Death of Achilles

213 statements
41 feature instances
9 referencing feature instances

The Death of Achilles	type	TVTItem
The Death of Achilles	label	The Death of Achilles
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The Death of Achilles	comment	Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_1'); })The Death of Achilles is a 1998 Russian novel by Boris Akunin. It is the fourth of fourteen novels in the Erast Fandorin mystery series.The book is set in 1882, four years after the events of previous novel Murder on the Leviathan. Fandorin has returned to Moscow from four years of diplomatic service in Japan with a new affinity for Japanese culture and a Japanese servant, Masa. He goes to work for the governor of Moscow, Prince Dolgorukoi, and is immediately tasked with investigating the death of General Mikhail Sobolev. Sobolev, the hugely popular victor of the Russo-Turkish War and Fandorin's old friend from novel #2, The Turkish Gambit, dies in a Moscow hotel on the same day Fandorin arrives in town. The death is believed to be a heart attack, but Fandorin discovers that Sobolev actually died in the arms of a lover and his bodyguards are covering it up. Fandorin, however, suspects murder.Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_2'); })Of course, he is right. The killer is Achimas Welde, a professional assassin with a long history of murders behind him, who was hired to dispose of Sobolev. And he's a figure from Fandorin's past, as he tried and failed to kill Fandorin—but did kill his wife—in the first Fandorin novel, The Winter Queen. As Fandorin's investigation closes in on the truth, the two head for a fatal confrontation.Fandorin's sojourn in Japan, skipped over between the previous novel and this one, is the subject of Fandorin novel #10, The Diamond Chariot.
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The Death of Achilles / int_14e1f6b2	type	Assassins Are Always Betrayed
The Death of Achilles / int_14e1f6b2	comment	Assassins Are Always Betrayed: Doubly subverted: Achimas thinks his contractor betrayed him (as he expected from the start) but it turns out that it was just his liaison who tried pocketing Achimas' payment. His contractor lets Achimas kill the liaison and thanks him for a well-done job.
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The Death of Achilles / int_1b4ead2d	type	Soft Glass
The Death of Achilles / int_1b4ead2d	comment	Soft Glass: Fandorin goes crashing through a glass window. Doesn't get a scratch. Of course, he was Born Lucky.
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The Death of Achilles / int_1e4a1e0e	type	I Owe You My Life
The Death of Achilles / int_1e4a1e0e	comment	I Owe You My Life: It's explained that Masa is now Fandorin's manservant because Fandorin saved his life in Japan. (As noted above, this and other stuff from Fandorin's time in Japan is explored in The Diamond Chariot.)
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The Death of Achilles / int_221a4bf4	type	Iconic Sequel Character
The Death of Achilles / int_221a4bf4	comment	Iconic Sequel Character: Masa, Fandorin's loyal Japanese manservant and right-hand man, makes his debut in this book, and will be Fandorin's Lancer for the rest of the series.
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The Death of Achilles / int_22cf536c	type	Chekhov's Gun
The Death of Achilles / int_22cf536c	comment	Chekhov's Gun: The Duke of Lichtenberg's Elmer Fudd Syndrome (see below) appears to be a random gag when he pops up in Fandorin's half of the narrative. But in the Achimas half of the book it reveals the Duke to be one of the conspirators in the Sobolev murder plot.
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The Death of Achilles / int_23a0a0d0	type	Dragon Their Feet
The Death of Achilles / int_23a0a0d0	comment	Dragon Their Feet: Achimas Welde, the anonymous assassin of the first novel, escapes Fandorin and returns three books later as the Big Bad.
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The Death of Achilles / int_33ba37ca	type	Out with a Bang
The Death of Achilles / int_33ba37ca	comment	Out with a Bang: Invoked and Exploited with Achimas' intricate murder of General Sobolev. Welde gets Sobolev to ingest a rare poison that only kills the victim when their heart exceeds a certain rate. Then he arranges a night of sex between Sobolev and Wanda the hooker, to get Sobolev's heart rate up.
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The Death of Achilles / int_340e75cb	type	Writing Indentation Clue
The Death of Achilles / int_340e75cb	comment	Writing Indentation Clue: Fandorin figures out Achimas's address by tracing the indentation in a notepad he found on the scene.
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The Death of Achilles / int_4604fd4d	type	Worthy Opponent
The Death of Achilles / int_4604fd4d	comment	Worthy Opponent: Achimas's thoughts as he sees Fandorin approach his door.
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The Death of Achilles / int_4cb7f0d8	type	Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome
The Death of Achilles / int_4cb7f0d8	comment	Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: A trademark of the Fandorin series. In this one General Sobolev, a key character in The Turkish Gambit (Fandorin #2) dies in the first chapter. Also, Xavier Grushin, Fandorin's old mentor from The Winter Queen (Fandorin #1), retired from the police force, is recruited by Fandorin to help in the investigation—and he also gets killed.
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The Death of Achilles / int_529362a3	type	Obsessive-Compulsive Barkeeping
The Death of Achilles / int_529362a3	comment	Obsessive-Compulsive Barkeeping: Even in a place as sleazy as the Hard Labor Inn. "...the innkeeper was answering reluctantly, in monosyllables, as he slowly wiped a glass tumbler with a dirty rag."
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The Death of Achilles / int_5a4aa505	type	Government Conspiracy
The Death of Achilles / int_5a4aa505	comment	Government Conspiracy: The clients behind General Sobolev's murder, who thus prevented him from starting a coup d'état.
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The Death of Achilles / int_5b0a8d6a	type	Racial Face Blindness
The Death of Achilles / int_5b0a8d6a	comment	Racial Face Blindness: Inverted when Fandorin, frustrated at the Japanese Masa's vague description of the suspect, says "We all l-look alike to him."
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The Death of Achilles / int_64cb3c0e	type	ElmerFuddSyndrome
The Death of Achilles / int_64cb3c0e	comment	Elmer Fudd Syndrome: The Duke of Lichtenberg, Sobolev's brother-in-law, speaks like this, calling Sobolev's death a "tewwible calamity." This turns out to be surprisingly plot relevant; see Chekhov's Gun above.
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The Death of Achilles / int_6a0b03a6	type	One Last Job
The Death of Achilles / int_6a0b03a6	comment	One Last Job: Achimas decides to take the Sobolev job because it will allow him to retire and buy a private island.
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The Death of Achilles / int_708cabf8	type	Sleeping Dummy
The Death of Achilles / int_708cabf8	comment	Sleeping Dummy: How Welde gets the drop on Fandorin when Fandorin enters the room.
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The Death of Achilles / int_70ade2c4	type	Culture Clash
The Death of Achilles / int_70ade2c4	comment	Culture Clash: Between Anabaptist German refugees and Muslim Chechen natives.
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The Death of Achilles / int_7348f03e	type	Don't Create a Martyr
The Death of Achilles / int_7348f03e	comment	Don't Create a Martyr: The whole point of Achimas's scheme to murder Sobolev—the government not only wants him dead, but wants him dead in an embarrassing way so his memory can't be used against a government.
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The Death of Achilles / int_7a4013f3	type	Deuteragonist
The Death of Achilles / int_7a4013f3	comment	Deuteragonist: Achimas Welde, who is effectively the Villain Protagonist of the second half of the book.
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The Death of Achilles / int_7abd339f	type	Black-and-White Morality
The Death of Achilles / int_7abd339f	comment	Black-and-White Morality: Lampshaded and averted. The brief Part III, in which Fandorin and Welde have their confrontation and the POV flips back and forth, is titled "White and Black". Yet as the latter parts of Achimas's narrative have shown, he is by no means all "black".
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The Death of Achilles / int_7e95adeb	type	High-Class Call Girl
The Death of Achilles / int_7e95adeb	comment	High-Class Call Girl: Wanda, the deluxe prostitute whom Sobolev is visiting at the time of his death.
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The Death of Achilles / int_8a9eb844	type	Perspective Flip
The Death of Achilles / int_8a9eb844	comment	Divided into two parts. The first part is Fandorin's investigation (using Fandorin as the POV character, for the first time since The Winter Queen). The second part is from Achimas's (the villain's) POV, in which we learn his life story and then go through the events of the first part from his POV. Then there's a climactic chapter that switches back and forth between Fandorin and Achimas's POV as they have their confrontation.
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The Death of Achilles / int_8b568cb7	type	Posthumous Character
The Death of Achilles / int_8b568cb7	comment	Posthumous Character: Sobolev is already dead within the first pages, but his plot against the government and the government's plot against him is the central story of the book.
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The Death of Achilles / int_8ba6dee3	type	Self-Poisoning Gambit
The Death of Achilles / int_8ba6dee3	comment	Self-Poisoning Gambit: Achimas at one point recalls doing this at one point in order to kill one of his targets, a rich, old, industrialist. The poison in question only became lethal when combined with a racing heartbeat, so the two drank poisoned wine together and then Achimas told the industrialist that the man's nephew was trying to kill him. Sure enough the industrialist died on the spot, while Achimas spent a while moving very slowly and carefully until the poison broke down and became harmless.
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The Death of Achilles / int_927b2f11	type	The Bus Came Back
The Death of Achilles / int_927b2f11	comment	The Bus Came Back: The white-eyed assassin from The Winter Queen returns, is given a name, and becomes the main villain.
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The Death of Achilles / int_9d137658	type	The Chanteuse
The Death of Achilles / int_9d137658	comment	The Chanteuse: Wanda's other job, when she isn't hooking.
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The Death of Achilles / int_9d6e002e	type	Whole Episode Flashback
The Death of Achilles / int_9d6e002e	comment	Whole Episode Flashback: Used in Part II, in which the life history and criminal career of the antagonist is recounted. This may be a nod to Sherlock Holmes novels, which often used this trope.note Holmes novels A Study in Scarlet and The Valley of Fear both use a structure identical to this one, with a whole second half of the book told from the POV of a suspect Holmes has been investigating.
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The Death of Achilles / int_a4905771	type	Double-Meaning Title
The Death of Achilles / int_a4905771	comment	Double-Meaning Title: Only if one processes all the allusions to the mythical Achilles, who in this novel is Achimas. So the title refers both to the death of Sobolev, called "the Russian Achilles"note a moniker actually dismissed by the Grand Prince at Skobelev's state funeral, who states that "Russian Hector" would be much more appropriate, and of Achimas.
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The Death of Achilles / int_bb10f0d3	type	Thieves' Cant
The Death of Achilles / int_bb10f0d3	comment	Thieves' Cant: Little Misha and all the other criminals at the Hard Labor Tavern practice this. Achimas is mystified when they refer to a recently deceased fellow thief as a "smooth operator".
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The Death of Achilles / int_c601fc37	type	Professional Killer
The Death of Achilles / int_c601fc37	comment	Professional Killer: Achimas Welde makes an excellent living.
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The Death of Achilles / int_c75df49a	type	Shout-Out
The Death of Achilles / int_c75df49a	comment	Shout-Out: Achimas's whole story is an extended Shout Out to the mythological Achilles. Their names are similar, they both hid out dressed as girls when they were young, they both killed a famous general, they both were shot in the leg by an arrow, etc. The Other Wiki goes into great detail here. Several phrases and mannerisms used by Achimas Welde in Death of Achilles are taken almost verbatim from Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal.
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The Death of Achilles / int_d346d7e8	type	Mail-Order Bride
The Death of Achilles / int_d346d7e8	comment	Mail-Order Bride: Achimas puts a weird spin on this when he gets time-limited Mail Order Brides, marrying them and then sending them on their way when the service contract expires.
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The Death of Achilles / int_d4ba9971	type	Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit
The Death of Achilles / int_d4ba9971	comment	Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit: One of Achimas' earlier contracts promised him a million francs if he managed to save a Spoiled Brat from the noose. The case is clear-cut, with several bodies of little girls murdered in a Nightmare Fuel fashion found in the guy's basement. Achimas manages to arrange for the blame to be shifted onto the guy who reported the bodies, who, suspiciously, is nowhere to be found (of course he isn't — Achimas is no Spoiled Brat, and therefore isn't sloppy with hiding corpses).
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The Death of Achilles / int_db2727e0	type	The Book Cipher
The Death of Achilles / int_db2727e0	comment	The Book Cipher: Used by the German spy, Knabe.
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The Death of Achilles / int_dfe57573	type	Historical In-Joke
The Death of Achilles / int_dfe57573	comment	Historical In-Joke: Wondering how the real-like Mikhail Skobelev died in 1882? Well, just maybe it was an elaborate murder plot.
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The Death of Achilles / int_e069fae8	type	Bad Guy Bar
The Death of Achilles / int_e069fae8	comment	Bad-Guy Bar: The Hard Labor Tavern, where the bandits of Moscow gather at night, and where Fandorin goes in search of Little Misha. There's a rotting corpse in the basement.
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The Death of Achilles / int_e3109dae	type	Switching P.O.V.
The Death of Achilles / int_e3109dae	comment	Switching P.O.V.: Divided into two parts. The first part is Fandorin's investigation (using Fandorin as the POV character, for the first time since The Winter Queen). The second part is from Achimas's (the villain's) POV, in which we learn his life story and then go through the events of the first part from his POV. Then there's a climactic chapter that switches back and forth between Fandorin and Achimas's POV as they have their confrontation. Fandorin's story also has a couple of digressions in which it briefly wanders out of Fandorin's POV and into that of his old boss Grushin or police chief Evgeny Karachentsev.
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The Death of Achilles / int_e3c36782	type	Call-Forward
The Death of Achilles / int_e3c36782	comment	Call-Forward: Achimas muses how Out with a Bang would be acceptable for a French leader but dishonorable for a Russian one. Fast-forward 17 years later, to the death of French president Félix Faure...
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The Death of Achilles / int_e5421161	type	Expy
The Death of Achilles / int_e5421161	comment	Expy: "Michel Sobolev" is a transparently obvious stand-in for the Real Life Mikhail Skobelev, who was in fact a Russian general and did in fact die suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1882 at the age of 38.
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The Death of Achilles / int_ec3ff1f7	type	In Which a Trope Is Described
The Death of Achilles / int_ec3ff1f7	comment	In Which a Trope Is Described: All the chapter titles of Fandorin's half of the story, as is the case with most Fandorin novels, Akunin deliberately evoking old-style prose. Averted with Achimas's story, which has a darker tone.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

The Death of Achilles	hasFeature	Assassins Are Always Betrayed / int_690615f8
The Death of Achilles	hasFeature	Bad Guy Bar / int_690615f8
The Death of Achilles	hasFeature	Dashed Plot Line / int_690615f8
The Death of Achilles	hasFeature	Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit / int_690615f8
The Death of Achilles	hasFeature	Don't Create a Martyr / int_690615f8
The Death of Achilles	hasFeature	Make It Look Like an Accident / int_690615f8
The Death of Achilles	hasFeature	Racial Face Blindness / int_690615f8
The Death of Achilles	hasFeature	The Book Cipher / int_690615f8
The Death of Achilles	hasFeature	Writing Indentation Clue / int_690615f8

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