A Synod of Sleuths: Ecclesiastical Detective Fiction (Golden Age): A Selection.
This list is a selection of clerical mysteries - one of my favourite corners of the Golden Age arena. There are plenty more to be added to it and I'll be doing so over the coming months. Please do drop in suggestions for the list - theoldman@cambridgecrime.com
Detective deans, vicars and curates are more than capable of quoting chapter and verse when it comes to solving puzzles and none better, I believe, than feature in William Brodrick’s Sixth Lamentation, where Larkwood Priory’s Father Anselm investigates a tangled and tragic case with dramatic results. The venerable locked-room mystery is re-worked, in Stephen Kendrick’s Sherlockian pastiche, Night Watch, with Holmes ably assisted by a young Father Brown, investigating which vengeful vicar dispatched the Anglican host, at a convention of clerics, meeting at a London Church to discuss an ecumenical conference.
Anglican parish politics are plentiful in Kate Charles’s books featuring Callie Anson, and in her ‘Book of Psalms’ series, especially in The Snares of Death, where it’s not whodunnit but who-didn’t-do-it, when a prominent clergyman is bumped off soon after moving to a new parish in Norfolk. There’s even poison in the parish, with church volunteers falling victim when one of the team is discovered decoratively dead in the vestry in Liz Howell’s The Flower Arranger at All Saints - floristry not up to scratch, eh?
Cathedral organists don’t fare any better either, after one is found quite dead in Edmund Crispin’s Holy Disorders, a story littered with a venerable cast of eccentric ecclesiastics and the inimitable Professor Gervase Fen playing detective. Murder is further served in George Birmingham’s The Hymn Tune Mystery when the often inebriated organist is bumped off in his own organ loft – off key, I presume!
Being pursued by a predatory female parishioner and a distinct lack of peace and quiet in his new parish is proof enough for the Reverend Francis Oughterard that ministry can be murder, especially when he ‘accidentally' strangles one of his flock, in Suzette Hill’s amusing A Load of Old Bones.
For the devout reader though there are generous offerings in store – so I’ll cease sermonising and simply trust you’ll make it your mission to devote yourself to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the content of many good books!
Margery Allingham: Tiger in the Smoke (9781784701598)
C. A. Alington: Archdeacon’s Afloat (9781906288068)
George Bellairs: The Case of the Famished Parson (9781911295488)
Death of a Busybody (9780712356442)
George A. Birmingham: The Hymn Tune Mystery (9781915475091)
"The 'Amen' was sung and then - then nothing more happened. The organ did not begin to play." --- Mr. Cresswood, the Carminster Cathedral organist, ought to be above reproach. A little eccentricity may perhaps be tolerated, for, after all, an organist is, or ought to be, a musician, and therefore not quite as sane as an archdeacon. But Cresswood was often inebriated - until the day he's found in the organ loft - quite dead, his skull cracked open.
A dean with scholarly tastes, his daughter, designed by nature to be the head of an Institution, a pompous Archdeacon, a cheerful Irish minor canon and a wonderful assembly of clerics populate this delightfully witty Trollopian treat.
Detective deans, vicars and curates are more than capable of quoting chapter and verse when it comes to solving puzzles and none better, I believe, than feature in William Brodrick’s Sixth Lamentation, where Larkwood Priory’s Father Anselm investigates a tangled and tragic case with dramatic results. The venerable locked-room mystery is re-worked, in Stephen Kendrick’s Sherlockian pastiche, Night Watch, with Holmes ably assisted by a young Father Brown, investigating which vengeful vicar dispatched the Anglican host, at a convention of clerics, meeting at a London Church to discuss an ecumenical conference.
Anglican parish politics are plentiful in Kate Charles’s books featuring Callie Anson, and in her ‘Book of Psalms’ series, especially in The Snares of Death, where it’s not whodunnit but who-didn’t-do-it, when a prominent clergyman is bumped off soon after moving to a new parish in Norfolk. There’s even poison in the parish, with church volunteers falling victim when one of the team is discovered decoratively dead in the vestry in Liz Howell’s The Flower Arranger at All Saints - floristry not up to scratch, eh?
Cathedral organists don’t fare any better either, after one is found quite dead in Edmund Crispin’s Holy Disorders, a story littered with a venerable cast of eccentric ecclesiastics and the inimitable Professor Gervase Fen playing detective. Murder is further served in George Birmingham’s The Hymn Tune Mystery when the often inebriated organist is bumped off in his own organ loft – off key, I presume!
Being pursued by a predatory female parishioner and a distinct lack of peace and quiet in his new parish is proof enough for the Reverend Francis Oughterard that ministry can be murder, especially when he ‘accidentally' strangles one of his flock, in Suzette Hill’s amusing A Load of Old Bones.
For the devout reader though there are generous offerings in store – so I’ll cease sermonising and simply trust you’ll make it your mission to devote yourself to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the content of many good books!
Margery Allingham: Tiger in the Smoke (9781784701598)
C. A. Alington: Archdeacon’s Afloat (9781906288068)
George Bellairs: The Case of the Famished Parson (9781911295488)
Death of a Busybody (9780712356442)
George A. Birmingham: The Hymn Tune Mystery (9781915475091)
"The 'Amen' was sung and then - then nothing more happened. The organ did not begin to play." --- Mr. Cresswood, the Carminster Cathedral organist, ought to be above reproach. A little eccentricity may perhaps be tolerated, for, after all, an organist is, or ought to be, a musician, and therefore not quite as sane as an archdeacon. But Cresswood was often inebriated - until the day he's found in the organ loft - quite dead, his skull cracked open.
A dean with scholarly tastes, his daughter, designed by nature to be the head of an Institution, a pompous Archdeacon, a cheerful Irish minor canon and a wonderful assembly of clerics populate this delightfully witty Trollopian treat.
The Hymn Tune Mystery
John Bude: Death Makes a Prophet (9780712356916)
Christopher Bush: The Case of the Purloined Picture (East Anglia) (9781913054076)
G. K. Chesterton: The Incredulity of Father Brown (9780141393308)
Agatha Christie: Murder at the Vicarage (9780008196516)
Joan Cockin: Villainy at Vespers (9781912916900)
Joan Coggin: Dancing with Death (9781912916603)
Edmund Crispin: Holy Disorders (9780008124182)
Moray Dalton: The Case of Alan Copeland (9781913054830)
Brian Flynn: Murder en Route (9781913054496)
Cold Evil (9781914150593)
The Swinging Death (9781915393401)
Stephen Kendrick: Night Watch (Sherlock Holmes meets Father Brown) (9780375403675)
Gladys Mitchell: St Peter’s Finger (9780099583950)
E. R. Punshon: It Might Lead Anywhere (9781911413431)
Brought to Light (9781911579076)
Dorothy L. Sayers: The Nine Tailors (9781473621398)
Francis Vivian: Darkling Death (9781912574452)
Victor L. Whitechurch: Murder at the College (9781999900489)
Crime at Diana’s Pool (9781906288051)
Winifred Peck: Arrest the Bishop (9781911413912)
The Rev. Ulder, everyone agreed, was the parish priest from hell. Was it the Bishop himself who delivered the fatal dose? Was it Soames, the less-than-model butler? Or one of a host of other inmates and guests in the house that night, with motives of their own to put Ulder out of the way? Young Dick Marlin, ex-military intelligence and now a Church deacon, finds himself assisting Chief Constable Mack investigate murder most irreverent.
This year I’ve been involved in seeing some favourite books reissued, including those from George A. Birmingham, Joan Cockin, Joan Coggin and Victor L. Whitechurch. The others, I have lovely memories of these by GA authors. One, more recently, has become another favourite (and recommended to many!) - Winifred Peck’s Arrest the Bishop - a treat!
Having mentioned those above, here are a few favourites from contemporary crime writers - limiting myself to one title per author!
William Brodrick: A Whispered Name (9780349121291)
Kate Charles: Snares of Death (9781910674093)
Colin Dexter: Service of All the Dead (9781447299196)
Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose (9780099466031)
Ruth Dudley Edwards: Murder in a Cathedral (9781590581346)
D.M Greenwood: Clerical Errors (9781906288099)
Susanna Gregory: The Lost Abbot (9780751549744)
Veronica Heley: Murder at the Altar (9781906288136)
Suzette A. Hill: A Load of Old Bones (9781849010962)
Lis Howell: The Flower Arranger at All Saints (9781789316681)
P. D. James: A Taste for Death (9780571350742)
Peter Lovesey: The Reaper (9780751553598)
Martha Ockley: The Reluctant Detective (9781782640684)
James Runcie: Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death (9781408857700)
C. J. Sansom: Dissolution (9781447285830)
Eric Shepherd: Murder in a Nunnery (9781909619388)
Andrew Taylor: The Roth Trilogy (9780007249596)
This is by no means an exhaustive list. I’m sure you will have your favourites too.
Richard Reynolds (theoldman@cambridgecrime.com).