Pelagia and the Black Monk - Boris Akunin

Boris Akunin’s second Pelagia novel is even better than the first. Having spent a lot of time providing background on the characters, the period and their location in The White Bulldog with some long diversions into mild philosophising (entertaining and highly readable though it was), Pelagia and the Black Monk, as promised at the end of the last, goes straight into the mystery with little beating around the bush.

That said, it’s a while before Sister Pelagia leaps into action, and only after Bishop Mitrofanii’s other trusted emissaries have failed – quite shockingly – in their attempts to uncover who or what is behind the fearsome apparition of a ghostly Black Monk at a popular place of religious retreat. Akunin handles all aspects of the thriller masterfully, with marvellous characterisation, borrowing from classic Russian literature, but putting a modern murder-mystery twist on proceedings, with plenty of cliff-hanging thrills and a genuinely unexpected outcome. Another intelligent, literate mystery from Akunin.

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