Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel
A Novel
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5.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The ship carrying the devout to Jerusalem has run into rough waters. Onboard is Manuila, controversial leader of the “Foundlings,” a sect that worships him as the Messiah. But soon the polarizing leader is no longer a passenger or a prophet but a corpse, beaten to death by someone almost supernaturally strong. But not everything is as it seems, and someone else sailing has become enmeshed in the mystery: the seemingly slow but actually astute sleuth Sister Pelagia. Her investigation of the crime will take her deep into the most dangerous areas of the Middle East and Russia, running from one-eyed criminals and after such unlikely animals as a red cockerel that may be more than a red herring. To her shock, she will emerge with not just the culprit in a murder case but a clue to the earth’s greatest secret.
Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel features its beloved heroine’s most exciting and explosive inquiry yet, one that just might shake the foundations of her faith.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After the brilliant triumph of 2008's Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk, Akunin's third and final Sister Pelagia mystery disappoints, in part because the 19th-century nun has little opportunity to display her deductive skills. Pelagia's use of her intellectual gifts for crime-solving draws the censure of St. Petersburg's Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod, who believes she may be unfit to continue to wear the veil. Later, when someone bashes in the head of Manuila, the messianic leader of a rogue Jewish sect, aboard a steamboat on which Pelagia happens to be a passenger, her observations prove useful to the investigating officer. After several attempts on her life, she's shipped off to Palestine, where she continues to look for the truth behind Manuila's murder. In Palestine, she fends off a number of suitors, behaving less like a woman of faith with insights into human nature than a damsel in distress.
