As a fan of Boris Akunin's Erast Fandorin mysteries, I picked up _Pelagia and the White Bulldog_ to see what his new character, Sister Pelagia was all about. I have mixed feelings.

The mystery itself is a bit odd ... you feel the initial mystery: who has been killing white bulldogs, a new breed that is being developed in rural Russia - is solved the first third of the book; yet Akunin is merely toying with you, as the death of the dogs (while tragic) is merely an hors d'ouvre to larger and more sinister crimes. This was fantastic, and while it took a bit to get used to the fact that the crime Pelagia was working on was not necessarily that to which she was called for, it was worth the investment of sticking with the story in the end.

Sister Pelagia, a young nun and new protagonist, is likable and, as a previous reviewer noted, similar somewhat to Christie's Miss Marple, I have mixed feelings about her - I much prefer Erast Fandorin. However, the reason I give _The White Bulldog_ four stars is the tendency of Akunin to go off on tangents. For example, an entire chapter is devoted to a discussion of the village in which the crimes take place, without any real bearing on the mystery itself. Similarly, the final courtroom scene where the murder is unmasked is a bit dragged out (almost giving a blow-by-blow of the opening remarks of both prosecution and defense.) I could have done without these painful details, and found myself wanting to "get to the meat" of the story. Tighter editing (perhaps in the original) would have solved this.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed the story. While I wait for the next Fandorin mystery to be translated, I can certainly entertain myself with this trilogy. A recommended read for mystery lovers.

This is a great translation by Bromfield, if you can laugh reading this book you know you are in good hands. It is bit slow to take off but then rapidly gathers steam leaving you quite breathless.

Four and a half stars. Boris Akunin has set off a new path with 'Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog'. (It appears that Erast Fandorin is a creature of the past. Akunin states that Fandorin had grown tired for him.) It is essential to start reading this series with this, the first book, as it introduces characters you will meet again in the Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk: A Novel (Mortalis).

The eponymous Pelagia is a nun in a late 19th century provincial Russian capital, but it is her detective work on behalf of Bishop Mitrofanii that interest Akunin's fans. Akunin weave a good mystery while introducing fascinating characters. Someone appears to be bumping off the beloved white bulldogs owned by the bishop's widowed and elderly and rich aunt - in an effort to push her into an early grave?

Pelagia is dispatched to get to the bottom of things. There's no shortage of suspects: the nihilist grandson, the devoted caretaker, an Englishwoman (recently named sole heiress), an "artistic" photographer, and the beautiful granddaughter. The imperial prosecutor is a nasty piece of work as well.

No mere mystery, Akunin delivers psychological profiles and a study of life in the Russian countryside in the tradition of Anton Chekov. Akunin also apparently includes references to contemporary Russian society that may make the book even more enjoyable to others more versed in the topic.

Highly recommended.

Not one of his best. No character grabs one's interest, and trying to keep track of the many players with their multiple, many-syllabled, sound-alike names takes one right out of the plot. Much better to wait for the next Erast Fandorin novel. Take a pass 'til then.

Not one of his best. No character grabs one's interest, and trying to keep track of the many players with their multiple, many-syllabled, sound-alike names takes one right out of the plot. Much better to wait for the next Erast Fandorin novel. Take a pass 'til then.

Boris Akunin is a well-regarded Russian author of suspense fiction, heretofore known for his Fandorin series, which concerns a part-James Bond, part-Hercules Poirot creation who nonetheless is strikingly original. SISTER PELAGIA AND THE WHITE BULLDOG marks the beginning of a new direction for Akunin and fittingly introduces Mortalis, a new imprint of literary mystery and suspense fiction for Random House.

We quickly learn from the unnamed, omnipresent narrator that Sister Pelagia is a sleuth in nun's habit, wishing to devote her life to God yet feeling stifled by the requirements of the order and by the role of women in early 20th century Russia. In addition, she is quite adept at solving mysteries, a skill that she hides from all except her supervisory bishop, who keeps her abilities a secret not only to preserve the good sister's customary role but also to keep her in reserve as a secret weapon in the political skirmishes that were the hallmark of the time.

The bishop generally has his hands full, what with an inspector from the Holy Synod coming to meddle in local affairs, the gruesome discovery of two decapitated bodies, and the bishop's aunt being in a terrible state as a result of the baffling death of one of her white bulldogs, a special breed that she and her late husband had nurtured through generations. The perpetrator of the canine murder is quickly determined, even if the motive isn't, and the unforeseen nexus that connects this and other events is slowly but surely sorted out in a climactic courtroom scene in which the good sister has a starring role.

It should be noted that Russian literature tends to be the antithesis of, say, a James Patterson work --- why use one word when pages will do? --- and occasionally, as even Akunin notes with a nod and a wink through his anonymous narrator, things seem to wander off track. All is revealed in good time, however, and along the way Akunin drops nuggets of dry, subtle humor amidst social and political commentary. Those who take their mysteries with great spoonfuls of explosions and karate may find this book wanting (though it does, particularly near the end, have its moments), and there is enough political intrigue and metaphor to provide a satisfactory feast.

Lovingly translated by Andrew Bromfield, SISTER PELAGIA AND THE WHITE BULLDOG is a welcome debut of a new series that hopefully will give Akunin the wider visibility in this country that his work deserves. And let's give some kudos to Random House as well for its brave launch of Mortalis. We'll happily look for more.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

The Sister Pelagia mystery series may not be as effortless a read to take in as Erast Fandorin, but it's well worth the effort. While the White Bulldog may be have a plot that is slightly less dynamic than the one Fandorin fans are used to, it is a refreshing change of pace. The language is beautiful, the characters are engaging and the sleuth and her posse (bishop Mitrofani and Berdichervsky) are at least as charismatic as Fandorin and Masa.
The series (there are only three novels in it) picks up the pace in The Black Monk and positively goes berserk in the Red Rooster, but the provincial charm of the White Bulldog is very enjoyable too.
Most Russian fans of Akunin consider the Pelagia trilogy to be a more workmanlike and even series than Fandorin, which has its peaks and valleys.

In the midst of writing mysteries about detective Erast Fandorin, the author has also begun a new series. This one concerns a nun named Sister Pelagia, who is sent out by her Bishop to help solve mysteries and murders in a backward province of Imperial Russia. The action is fast, the plot never wavers, and the characters are all well-srawn. One interesting quirk to this story is that, when it is required, Sister Pelagia assumes the identity of her "sister", a widow who dresses and acts exactly as would an upper class member of the Russian nobility. I found the premise of this book fascinating, and the characters of both the good sister and her boss the bishop very believeable, therefore I am awaiting anxiously the next book in this marvelous series.

In Zavolzhsk, far from the home of the Tsar, Bishop Mitrofannii rules over the vast scarcely populated remote region instead of Governor von Haggenau. The Bishop has earned a reputation for solving unsolved mysteries, which he takes pride in accomplishing though he also knows who actually uncovers the truth. Now his elderly late Aunt Marya Tatischeva sends him a letter asking for his help as someone poisoned Zagulyai and Zadidai with the former dying in agony and the latter barely surviving. He decides to send his secret sleuth literature and gymnastics teacher Sister Pelagia to learn what happened and why to the white bulldogs.

Sister Pelagia travels to the home of Marya to investigate the canine homicide. Sister Pelagia quickly concludes that the target is the elderly woman, who is known for treating her dogs like pampered babies, but what the nun believes is the motive leads to several avaricious souls. However, other dogs are killed and the case takes a twist when two males are recovered from the nearby river with their heads removed. The Bishop directs Sister Pelagia to investigate the murders regardless of where it takes her, as he expects everyone to live morally and piously correct though he has some doubts with her switching identities from clumsy reticent nun to vibrant nimble Polina Lisitsina.

In some ways this is more a nineteenth century historical thriller than a mystery. SISTER PELAGIA AND THE WHITE BULLDOG is a superior whodunit that uses the backdrop to paint a vivid picture of a remote part of Tsarist Russia. Readers will have to adapt to the names of the key characters, but will find it worth the time as the descriptions are terrific and the cast powerful especially the Sister and the Bishop, as irony and humor augment a fabulous story line.

Harriet Klausner

and it's all thanks to "Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog." I haven't read (yet) Akunin's four Detective Fandorin books available in English, but I will -- while I'm eagerly awaiting release of the next in the Sister Pelagia series, "Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk."

Akunin's new, late nineteenth century protagonist is a young, sometimes clumsy, freckled and bespectacled Russian Orthodox Bride of Christ who, we learn as we read, has already solved a few criminal mysteries at the behest of her bishop, the formidable, sometimes bombastic and contradictory, but wise Mitrofanii. This time, she tackles the mystery of who is poisoning specially bred bulldogs with distinctive pelt markings and especially slobbery jowls. At least, that is her initial assignment, but Pelagia soon stumbles upon a sequence of heinous human murders and must discover how everything fits together before she ends up a corpse too.

The narrator of "Sister Pelagia" is unnamed and "hovers" wherever the author chooses. One gets the impression this is an omniscient denizen of the province's humble capital town, Zavolzhsk. In the first third/half of the book, this narrator provides an abundance -- one can claim overabundance! -- of background information on the various, colorful, sometimes blackly comical, sometimes broodingly base, sometimes just plain demented individuals who people Zavolzhsk and the bishop's aunt's country estate. All this familiarization hinders the tale's flow for a time. But once Pelagia solves the first mystery, the novel swings into high gear plot-wise. The suspense is supreme when she must fight for her life, first on land, then in water. And the courtroom scenes provide a satisfying finale to the complex mysteries Akunin devised.

The author, whose perversely playful pen name, Akunin, means "wrongdoer" in Japanese; was born in the USSR and currently resides in Moscow. In an interview (appended in this volume), he commented relevantly, "The problems that Russia faced at the end of the nineteenth century are essentially the same problems we have in Russia today." Not by accident then, "Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog" contains a loose governmental and ethical/religious organization blueprint for the story's province that Akunin evidently thinks present-day Russian public institutions could do well to emulate. The novel contains a number of leisurely exchanges between characters about the nature and reach of good government and other social influences like the Orthodox Church. This aspect of the book lends it added gravitas and consequence.

"Sister Pelagia and the White Bull Dog" is compared to Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" by Akunin's interviewer. There do exist similarities, and one definitely feels a classic "Russianness" in the style. By the way, translator Andrew Bromfield has, to this non-Russian-speaking reader, superbly conveyed the feeling we should get when reading this spry and wry Russian author. And reviewers have suggested that the intrepid Pelagia shares characteristics with famous fictional detectives Father Brown and Miss Marple. Agreed, although young Pelagia also reminds one of Sherlock Holmes who wasn't always himself either....

A wish list for future Sister Pelagia installments: a map is always welcome (even of a make-believe location), and a list of characters can't hurt...it is difficult to keep all the long Russian names straight.

This is a very rewarding read. Four and a half stars. [...]