A review by liketheday
Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog by Boris Akunin

3.0

I read Akunin's Death of Achilles last summer and just loved it, so when I saw this book sitting on the mysteries shelf I had to grab it. The plot is fairly interesting: a bishop's great-aunt raises specially-bred white bulldogs for whom she essentially lives her life. Two of the three dogs are poisoned, sending this woman into a fit, and the bishop is contacted to find out who the dog-poisoning scoundrel is. Meanwhile, the bishop finds himself under attack by an inspector from St. Petersburg, who is trying to unseat the bishop by drawing criticism to his lack of conversions. A few murders by decapitation occur that are blamed on the pagans of the area who should obviously have been converted to Catholicism by the bishop, and he sets off to find out what the heck is going on. The first mystery is solved rather quickly, but the second goes through a few twists and turns before finally culminating in a pretty darn cool ending. I liked the beginning and the end of this book, but the middle left something to be desired, so if you read this book, muddle your way through the boring parts and just enjoy the awesome melodrama.