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This week Russian literary sensation Max Frei returns to the United States with the third installment in the internationally bestselling Labyrinths of Echo fantasy series, The Stranger's Magic.  First published in Russia more than fifteen years ago, Frei's Labyrinths of Echo series has since become a bestselling international phenomena, infusing highly philosophical comic fantasy with

Our friend Colleen Mondor at Bookslut has posted a fantastic review of Max Frei's The Stranger: Max Frei’s The Stranger is an international bestseller that took Russia by storm. Mad curiosity over what literary sensation the Russians love was enough to make me want to read this book. Apparently the Russians like fantasy -- really well written fantasy -- and The Stranger is a great blend of that genre and hardboiled mystery with some thrills and It’s a Mad Mad Mad World fish out of water comedy thrown in. It’s an utterly original title that any fan of the surreal (adult or teen) will enjoy.

Max Frei, the same as the author, is a “twenty-something loser” who is drifting through life with nothing exceptional to share other than odd sleeping patters. At night he is a chronic insomniac while during the day sleep comes with ease. He remembers his dreams with deep clarity and many times finds himself in a world with an old world European sensibility where he enjoys wonderful meals at a certain sidewalk café and chats with a man named Sir Juffin. As the book opens Max discovers that he can travel to this parallel world, and live in the “City of Echo.” Sir Juffin makes him a member of the Department of Absolute Order, a group of secret agents tasked with solving magical crimes. It is here that Max’s nocturnal habits are much needed and he finds himself battling all manner of demonic creatures and wizards gone bad along with the rest of the department. Max makes friends, proves capable of great bravery and even become Death after a mix-up with some major magic. While all of the mysteries are serious (even the one with magically animated evil dolls ala Chucky), Frei’s humor comes through with every word. Readers will find themselves enjoying Max’s adventures without ever fearing for him or the denizens of Echo. There are fatalities but also romance (secret agent style) and the surprising domestication of cats and swimming in multiple bathtubs. Frei excels at his world building and brings Echo alive in the best combination of 19th century Austria and futuristic steampunk delights. Frei has a series of books set in Echo and hopefully there will be more of Max’s adventures to come for English readers. This is irresistible reading. He’s smart, savvy and funny; an everyman hero we can all believe in."

Book critic Carol Memmott takes a look at Max Frei's The Stranger in a round-up of "International Voices" in USA Today: "Max Frei is the "Nocturnal Representative of The Most Venerable Head of the Minor Secret Investigative Force" in the city of Echo, the dreamlike fantasy world in this epic written by Russians Svetlana Martynchik and Igor Stepin under a pseudonym that also happens to be the name of the novel's protagonist. Fans of Jasper Fforde and Susanna Clarke will happily jump into Frei's world, where the one-time slacker — now magical secret agent — solves bizarre cases in an enchanted alternate world. Published in 1996 in Russia and a best seller there, it's the first in the Labyrinths of Echo series."

Another rave review for Max Frei's The Stranger:

Peter Mayer spoke to Jason Boog of GalleyCat this week in Overlook's SoHo office. Here's the post: "GalleyCat caught up with Overlook Press founder Peter Mayer to study the fine art of literary obfuscation. This month, Overlook Press will publish The Stranger by Max Frei--a literary fantasy novel supposedly written by the novel's main character. In reality, The Stranger was written by a reclusive female artist and has sold millions of copies in Russia. After hearing Russian readers rave about the book, Mayer scooped up the eight-book series. "A great deal of Russian literature has been disguised," he explained. "Russia was an autocratic state with great curtailments on people's personal lives... [obfuscation] is a feature that kept a lot of writers out of jail for many years."

Book blogger Rick Kleffel takes on The Stranger by Max Frei in this inspired new post:

"Literary tricksters get up to all sorts of shenanigans. Take for example, "Max Frei," the "author" of The Stranger. It might take readers a few heartbeats to figure out what exactly is going on, even though the title of the first chapter "Debut in Echo" is a pretty good clue, because "Max Frei" is both the author and the narrator of this novel. A memoir, you ask? Well, sure — a memoir in which the author journeys to an alternate reality when he sleeps. And that's probably the least strange aspect of this novel. Max Frei, the narrator / author of The Stranger tells us from the get-go that he just doesn't sleep very well, except during the day. And there's an exception there, as well, because when he falls to sleep he awakens in a dream world that's vivid enough to support what is now a ten-novel series, written originally in Russian.

The Stranger offers up a series of adventures but not necessarily a single plot arc beyond the continual and quite entertaining evolution of "Max Frei." That said, the spiky, smart prose and the often exceedingly cool surrealism that shoot through this book will certainly satisfy those looking for something rather different. The Russian flavor of the proceedings gives even the most ordinary stuff a weird sort of exoticism. Now all this sidesteps a rather major issue to my mind, that is, that the book is actually the work not of "Max Frei," the main character, but instead Svetlana Martynchik, who has been publishing book reviews as well as books under the pen name of Max Frei. So, big surprise, there is no city of Echo, and the only magicians are the ones who made half the wealth of this world disappear like, overnight.

While the world dances on the graves of Publishing Establishment, the establishment itself seems to be doing rather better than one might presume. Overlook Press is a great example. Peter Mayer and his crew of iconoclastic editors have a charmingly eclectic sense of taste, they work totally independently, and they're a general interest press, publishing non-fiction, literary fiction and outside stuff like this in hardcover original editions. Perhaps it's Overlook that resides in a dream world; and it's not a bit surprising that they've found Max Frei."

The buzz is building for Max Frei's international bestseller The Stranger, which will be published in April 2009. Kirkus Reviews offers some early praise: "If Harry Potter smoked cigarettes and took a certain matter-of-fact pleasure in administering tough justice, he might like Max Frei, the protagonist of this fantasy novel. Author Frei is a Russian whose books have been bestsellers in his homeland for the last dozen years. Frei, this novel's protagonist, is something of a dissolute slacker who once spent his nights smoking, eating and loafing, his days sleeping. When Sir Juffin Hully (who looks like Rutger Hauer's older brother, though, Frei suggests, "try to augment his striking image with a pair of light, slightly slanting eyes") comes into Frei's life, he acquires a new sense of purpose. Frei has always been a dreamer, and now he has reason to wander between Worlds and see what kind of mischief he can find. Hully is a masterpiece of Potterian eccentricity, and then some, and the tone of the book often has a Potterian charm, though there's an undercurrent of post–Cold War espionage in the mix; indeed, Frei, a onetime resident of the backwaters of empire transposed to the Heart of the World, reminds us that the barren borderlands house "the most diverse, sometimes extraordinarily powerful people, and not just wild barbarians," which seems a very Russian thing to inject into the proceedings. Inspired by such characters as the Master Who Snuffs Out Unnecessary Lives, a survivor of the Troubled Times, a habitu of places like the Murky Market and the House by the Bridge, and familiar with the deleterious effects the Elixir of Kaxar has on his countrymen, Frei does his bit to keep the world safe from malevolent magicians and conspiratorial spirits. And if the book is more talk than action, that talk is reliably entertaining, frequently double-edged and nicely idiosyncratic ("I'm off to do something meaningless, as you suggest. That's what I do best"). Well-written, well-paced grown-up fantasy with a strong dose of reality.