A brand new, enthralling clerical mystery from a much-loved writer.
Kate Charles, who was described by the Oxford Times as 'a most English writer', is in fact an expatriate American, though an unashamedly Anglophilic one. She has a special interest and expertise in clerical mysteries, and lectures frequently on crime novels with church backgrounds. Kate lives in Bedford with her husband and their dog, and is a former Chairman of the Crime Writers' Association and the Barbara Pym Society.
If you enjoy James Runcie's Grantchester series, you will love Kate
Charles' compelling, updated, clerical mystery. An addictive read
from one of my very favorite writers.’
*Deborah Crombie, New York Times bestselling author of To Dwell in
Darkness*
Thoroughly entertaining, even to those of no religious bent.
*The Times*
A bloodstained version of the world of Barbara Pym.
*The Guardian*
I have a particular soft spot for cosy mysteries set in cathedral
closes and small country parishes—I recently re-read with great
satisfaction some books from the Golden Age such as Dorothy Sayers’
"The Nine Tailors" and Ngaio Marsh’s earlier works. It was
therefore with pleasure that I opened the most recent batch of
review books and found a new Callie Anson novel.
Callie is a newly-ordained Church of England priest, working hard
to learn the ropes in a parish where the Rector loads her with a
lot of the donkey work, where his wife suspects her of being an
occasion of sin for her husband, and where gossiping tongues are
ever ready to slice up the unwary. Callie isn’t unhappy—she has a
cosy little flat over the church hall, a faithful dog, and a new
boyfriend who has just given her a spectacular ring and an offer of
marriage. However, she does have some baggage from her past that
makes her life a little less than it could be. Former fiancé Adam
dumped her unceremoniously and while she’s sure she’s over him, she
can’t forgive his behaviour.
Her best friend Tamsin is one of those forces of nature who carry
you along on their enthusiasms and against her better judgment,
Callie agrees to come along to their alma mater for a week-long
study and renewal course, once she is assured that Adam won’t be
there. Of course when it’s too late to back out, she learns Adam is
a last-minute arrival. Like it or not she will have to see and
perhaps interact with him.
While Callie is away on the course her fiancé Mark Lombardi is
dealing with his difficult job as police liaison officer in London.
He is trying to console and assist a pair of middle-aged doctors
whose teenage son has been found murdered in the local park.
Despite the surgeon-mother’s determined insistence that the boy was
nearly a saint, Mark and his fellow officers learn that Sebastian
was hiding a lot in his closet. As well as his demanding job, Mark
is trying to cope as a stand-in father for his niece whose father
has recently died. His old-style Italian family of women will
suffocate him one of these days, but he doesn’t seem able to deal
with it.
While Mark and the other police officers assigned to the murder
case try to sort truth from fiction, Callie becomes involved in a
similar task at Archbishop Temple House, where some very decent
people are likely to be ruined by thoughtless slander. Without
being "preachy", this book works as a solid reminder of the dangers
of passing on gossip, and mindless sharing of quasi-news and
questionable facts. On the edge of disaster, the presence and
gentle counsel of John Kingsley, a retired priest, makes all the
difference to several people at the conference. "Who do you think
is suffering because you can’t forgive Adam?" he asks Callie. The
anvil drops: Callie’s not stupid, and a new and better life
suddenly opens before her.
The story is told through Callie’s point of view, with some
sidesteps into the minds of the other main characters. There are
several rather odious characters, but Kate Charles gives even these
some humanity and empathy. Highly recommended.
*Blog: New Mystery Reader*
More than one mystery intersect in another adventure from Kate
Charles. She’s an experienced expat author living in England
exploring the mysteries of faith, love, family and violence in her
books. In this fourth Callie Anson novel, it is her circle of
acquaintances who are involved in a variety of actions and
decisions, old and new, that drive the story and its sometimes
complicated relationships.
Callie travels from London to Cambridge to attend a reunion of her
classmates, graduates from theological seminary. She will have to
confront both the scenes and at least one man with whom she was
deeply emotionally involved during her time there: a man who
unceremoniously dumped her in a shameful and hurtful way. Around
her are arrayed classmates and older theologians who help Callie’s
travel to emotional understanding. Meanwhile, the new love of her
life, a London policeman who functions as a Family Liaison officer,
becomes involved in the murder of a young man in Paddington Square.
As intriguing as the convoluted relationships among the religious
that are examined in this story are, the murder of a school boy
with only a single tenuous link to the other plot, leads to
examinations of working and absent parents, stresses in modern
society and pressures of various kinds on law enforcement.
Together, the development of these separate plot lines present a
realistic picture of modern life.
These ideas and more are nicely embodied in the characters brought
to the page by the author. The messages are many, perhaps too many,
but the author’s delicate touch leaves them to the reader to accept
or pass over. None is presented in such a way that one feels
manipulated or into forced acceptance.
Charles nicely places the action in several consummately English
locations. No generics here. She’s been called a most English of
writers and compared favorably to Agatha Christie in these aspects.
All in all an excellent, calm and deliberate story that can leave a
reader with considerable food for thought.
*Blog*
The idyllic village on the jacket of The Corpse in the Cellar by
Kel Richards gives no suggestion of horrors to come. Setting his
novel in 1933, Richards boldly uses C. S. Lewis and his brother,
Warnie, as leading characters, combining them with the fictional
Tom Morris, pupil of Lewis and narrator of the tale, as the three
set out on a walking holiday.
Accidents (the destruction of Lewis’s wallet in a fire) and the
cumbersome procedures in the nearest village bank are almost cosmic
to the modern reader, brain-washed as we are by the convenience and
speed of modern systems. When the seemingly impossible murder
occurs in the bank vault, Lewis’s powerful brain cuts through the
fog of conflicting evidence.
Richards’s book is also a strong Christian polemic: Lewis is busy
trying to convert his intelligent pupil Tom to follow his own route
from atheism to belief. I’m not sure, however, of the readership
that is being aimed at: both agnostic lovers of Agatha Christie and
believing Lewis fans will be tempted to skip the religious
dialectic, and some readers might find the over-use of adverbs to
qualify speech – sagely, confidently, heartily, etc. – off-putting.
They weaken a strong basic plot.
If The Corpse in the Cellar is a meander down a pre-war country
lane, False Tongues by Kate Charles is like negotiating a complex
modern motorway junction at speed. This is Charles’s sixth novel
about Callie Anson, a curare in a busy central-London parish. Anson
is persuaded to attend a reunion at her Cambridge theological
college, leaving behind her new love, PC Mark Lombardi, currently
embroiled in trying to solve the murder of Sebastian Frost, a tall,
beautiful teenager found bleeding to death on Paddington Green, in
Anson’s parish.
We’re not deep in the online world, ruled here by Facebook.
Cyber-bullying flourishes: reality is masked, horrifyingly warped,
and very difficult for the police to pin down. "A suicide note via
Facebook . . . why not? This was the Facebook generation: they
lived their lives on the Internet."
Charles tells a riveting tale, and helps the reader follow her
complex web of more than 50 vividly drawn characters, plus the
interaction of the dual setting, plus a group of very different
social worlds, by giving a full cast list.
Since it’s the first Callie Anson story I’ve read (there are six in
the series). I found the list essential, but I greatly enjoyed this
modern ecclesiastical mystery, and look forward to reading earlier
volumes that are currently being republished by Marylebone
House.
*Church Times*
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