IT USED to be said that the reason that many parish priests immersed themselves in a model-railway hobby was that it is one of the few things in their lives that they could control. So, one can only speculate about the subconscious yearning that has led to another trend. Clergy are turning to publishing fiction in the murder-mystery genre. First, there was Richard Coles, who has recently had several books in his Canon Clement mystery series published. Now we have an offering from a debut author, Penny Stephens, with her novel Till Death Do Us Part.
Set in the Dorsetshire home of a high-flying government junior minister, the elaborate country wedding of the minister’s daughter is the backdrop to murder and intrigue. Among the guests are her colleague at the Home Office, David Brakespear, and his family. Conveniently, his wife, Clare, is both Anglican priest and amateur sleuth. The story starts slowly. As might be expected at a large wedding, we are introduced to myriad characters. Rather high detail descriptions in the narrative are initially distracting, but the reader gradually develops an engaging relationship with the main characters and is immersed in the gripping conclusion.
The jewel in this book, written from a vicar’s perspective, is its pastoral and liturgical dimensions, which come from the author’s own experience. Clare’s pastoral skills prompt suspects and witnesses to be frank and remarkably, open even in the face of uncomfortable truths. This is cloak-and-dagger with a rather see-through cloak. The fusion of detective and parish priest works well. While not original, the format brings to the fore fascinating spiritual tensions and moral dilemmas. At the end, there is the hint of a sequel, which I eagerly await.
Continuing in the Christian detective vein, our second fictional offering switches from contemporary rural Dorset to Oxford soon after the Second World War. In her crime novel The Mystery at Rake Hall, the author, Maureen Paton, has chosen an interesting formula. Pick a famous historical author and imagine his detective skills if presented with a mysterious case to be solved. The Oxford don and famous author C. S. (“Jack”) Lewis hunts a tutee who has vanished without trace. While somewhat stretching the bounds of credibility, the formula works. Don’t expect a comprehensive introduction to Lewis’s life and work. Rather, you will find an entertaining distraction that transports you to the dreaming spires of the university city and the fascinating, clashing cultures of “town and gown”.
Resonances of Lewis’s writings are no coincidence: for example, two of the main characters are named Lucy and Susan. He is portrayed as being outside his comfort zone where relationships with women, physical exertion, and the police are concerned. Nevertheless, with the encouragement of his friend the crime novelist Dorothy L. Sayers, Lewis teams up with Lucy, an unlikely hero, to conquer his fears and prejudices. They emerge victorious over a sinister world of corruption, vice, and exploitation that lay festering beneath Oxford’s veneer of learning and respectability.
Who knows where these writing trends may end? Clergy sitting at their laptops may well abandon their sermon preparation, or that measured email response to an obstreperous parishioner, and instead begin crafting a new bestseller. Will it be Cardinal Newman investigates . . . or, more likely, Murder at the Parochial Church Council?
The Revd Nick Goulding is Professor Emeritus of Pharmacology and Medical Education at Queen Mary University of London.
Till Death Us Do Part
Penny Stephens
Quercus £16.99
(978-1-5294-4142-0)
Church Times Bookshop £15.29
The Mystery at Rake Hall: C. S. Lewis investigates
Maureen Paton
Swift Press £16.99
(978-1-80075-483-6)
Church Times Bookshop £15.29