PELAGIA AND THE RED ROOSTER

TITLE: PELAGIA AND THE RED ROOSTER
AUTHOR: BORIS AKUNIN
Pages: 410
Date: 22/06/2009
Grade: 4-
Details: no. 3 Sister Pelagia Mystery
Library

Even with the first two books in this series I felt that Akunin wasn't completely serious. It all seemed a bit over the top, while at the same time being very well written and very interesting mysteries.
With this latest instalment I feel he's taken it all a bit too far. I never got the feeling that Akunin was even trying to make the story believable or realistic. What's more, he did some serious borrowing from Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov.
Still, I did enjoy the book enough to want to read all of it, and I'm glad that I did because based on events in the story and the way the book ended, I think there's a good chance there won't be any more Pelagia Mysteries.
This book starts with Pelagia vowing that she'll stop her investigations and start concentrating on her life and duties as a nun. It's only a short time later though, when she finds herself breaking her vow. When the leader of a religious group is murdered on the boat Pelagia is travelling on, she finds the body an soon finds herself involved in the investigation.
After three attempts have been made on her life, Pelagia takes herself away from her familiar surroundings to Palestine. She doesn't go there for spiritual reasons though, but to continue her investigation. And it's during this investigation that she finds herself questioning her faith and everything she believes in.