Quest by Boris Akunin. Short summary

5 seconds

Two fascinating detective-fiction plots. A novel-quest, stylized as a computer game, poses questions. The novel-code offers answers.

1 minute

Quest. 1930s. American scientist Galton North, a pharmacologist, is sent to the Soviet Union on the assignment of bigwig Rothweller. The task is to discover and destroy the secret laboratory for the production of the Elixir of Genius. Rothweller wants to become the world’s sole possessor and manager of the miraculous drug.

Fulfill the spy mission Nord help emigrant princess Zoya and the National Socialist Eisenkopf. Both are double agents and medical chemists to boot.

Codes. 1812. Russia is stormed by Napoleon’s troops. Professor Samson Fondorin, a brilliant inventor in the field of biochemistry, is sent to the location of the enemy troops. Under the guise of a healer, Samson approaches Napoleon and pours into the emperor’s dinner a serum that paralyzes the will.

Fondorin is taken prisoner. Henceforth the talented scientist is held by Baron Ankre, the emperor’s lieutenant physician and possessor of the Elixir of Power.
The dilogy is structured in such a way that the second novel is code for understanding the novel-quest.