Murder on the Leviathan : a novel
(Book)

Originally published in Russian in 1998. The English language translation was originally published in 2004 in hardcover by Random House.

Paris, 1878: Eccentric antiquarian Lord Littleby and his ten servants are found murdered in Littleby's mansion on the rue de Grenelle, and a priceless Indian shawl is missing. Police commissioner "Papa" Gauche recovers only one piece of evidence from the crime scene: a golden key shaped like a whale. Gauche soon deduces that the key is in fact a ticket of passage for the Leviathan, a gigantic steamship soon to depart Southampton on its maiden voyage to Calcutta. The murderer must be among its passengers. In Cairo, the ship is boarded by a young Russian diplomat with a shock of white hair-none other than Erast Fandorin, the celebrated detective of Boris Akunin's The Winter Queen. The sleuth joins forces with Gauche to determine which of ten unticketed passengers on the Leviathan is the rue de Grenelle killer. -- from Amazon.

Investigating the murder of an English aristocrat whose children and servants were found dead nearby of morphine overdoses, police commissioner Gauche teams up with Erast Fandorin to identify a killer on board a luxury cruise ship.

Translated from the Russian.