YMMV / The Winter Queen

• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Lady Astair is the founder of a large chain of orphanages where every child's talents are discovered and nurtured. Those of her fosterlings whose gifts are best suited for politics, the military, or the police, she trains to rise to the highest ranks and push for the liberal reforms she feels the destitute world desperately needs. Through one of her alumni, a Femme Fatale, she manipulates two rich students into bequeathing their fortunes to her and then arranges their deaths: as she puts it, "One can't clean the Augean stables without getting dirty". She likewise uses her other various alumni to try killing and then brainwashing Erast Fandorin when he gets close to the truth in his investigation; when that fails, she calmly accepts her defeat and, before blowing herself up, even lets Fandorin go, making him promise not to hunt down her kids, arranging for a bomb to be sent to him should he break his word. A Granny Classic who genuinely loves her kids and genuinely respects and pities Fandorin, Lady Astair holds worldwide politics in her grasp for decades.
  • Ivan Brilling is one of Lady Astair's alumni and a member of her Azazel program. A brilliant police officer, he joins the Moscow investigation of Azazel and fascinates young Erast Fandorin with his administrative and deduction talents as well as his personable, easygoing manner. He steers the investigation away from Lady Astair and towards an unrelated nihilistic group. When Fandorin insists on following the real clues, Brilling tries to talk him out of it but, as he isn't giving up, agrees and gives him a promotion before sending him to be killed by Azazel's London branch. Meanwhile, Brilling unmasks the nihilists' group, claiming it's Azazel. After Fandorin manages to escape and rushes to him with proofs of the conspiracy, Brilling instantly makes a new plan to put all the blame on Lady Astair's right-hand man Cunningham, intending to make it look like Cunningham and Fandorin killed each other in a fight. Fandorin just barely succeeds in killing him, almost at the cost of his own life, and Brilling's last word is "Azazel". A true genius of deduction and a genuinely friendly man who is loath to kill Fandorin and says as much, Brilling is remembered fondly in the police even after The Reveal and remains a major role model for Fandorin in the future books.