I've read some of Boris Akunin's Erast Fandorin novels before and didn't mind those, but I will confess that the "Red Rooster" is what got me interested in reviewing this, being a bit of a poultry fan :)
From the Blurb:
Returning from the Synod in St Petersburg - and an official rebuke of her crime-fighting ways - Pelagia finds herself aboard the Steamer Sturgeon, dodging pickpockets, zealots and a sinister man with a detachable eye. But the brutal murder of the would-be Messiah in the cabin next door spells the end of Pelagia's sleuthing retirement, and the beginning of an investigation that will take her to the Holy Land and far beyond the realm of human knowledge.
Opening Lines:
Muffin rolled on board the steamer Sturgeon as roundly and gently as the little loaf he was named after.
Returning from the Synod in St Petersburg - an an official rebuke of her crime-fighting ways - Pelagia finds herself aboard the Steamer Sturgeon, dodging pickpockets, zealots and a sinister man with a detachable eye. But the brutal murder of the would-be Messiah in the cabin next door spells the end of Pelagia's sleuthing retirement, and the beginning of an investigation that will take her to the Holy Land and far beyond the realms of human knowledge.