Description
Canon Daniel Clement is Rector of Champton. He has been there for eight years, living at the Rectory alongside his widowed mother - opinionated, fearless, ever-so-slightly annoying Audrey - and his two dachshunds, Cosmo and Hilda.
When Daniel announces a plan to install a lavatory in church, the parish is suddenly (and unexpectedly) divided: as lines are drawn, long-buried secrets come dangerously close to destroying the apparent calm of the village.
And then Anthony Bowness - cousin to Bernard de Floures, patron of Champton - is found dead at the back of the church, stabbed in the neck with a pair of secateurs.
As the police moves in and the bodies start piling up, Daniel is the only one who can try and keep his fractured community together... and catch a killer.
Review
I was expecting so much more than I got from this book.
As I began reading this book I assumed it was set in the present day. References to Tenko and To the Manor Born being on the TV made me rethink that. I decided it must be the 1980s - rechecked the blurb, but no clues there. Then a character had what the Rector thought was a mobile phone in her handbag - he had never seen one. Well, in the 1980s a mobile phone was still very brick like, and not found in a ladies handbag! I was there.
Finally a clue (not about the storyline) - a Eurovision song was mentioned and it put the year at 1988. Meanwhile all this guesswork had distracted me from the story. It still read more like 1958 than 1988 to me and reminded me of the style of Barbara Pym.
I was 25% in before anything actually happened in the story and was beginning to wonder how long it would take to continue to "scene set". Far too many characters had me getting them muddled up, apart from the Rector and his family, and the rather awful Stella.
As you would expect the writer had the church scenes absolutely correct. Right down to the squabbling and in fighting with Church committees and such like. But for me it was too detailed in the high Church goings on, bible quotes and Latin references - The Vicar of Dibley this is not. I found it extremely dry reading.
At 74% there began to be a sort of Hercule Poirot moment of grey cells working and something caught my attention. Unfortunately it soon lapsed back to being a plod of a book for me. I did read to the end as I had invested so much in it. I wanted to know whodunnit!
I'm giving this book 3 out of 5 stars. My thanks to netgalley for the ARC to review.
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