Ostara Publishing

American-born Charles reaches new heights of Anglophilia in the second adventure (after A Drink of Deadly Wine ) to team up London artist Lucy Kingsley and Norfolk solicitor David Middleton-Brown. Bob Dexter is a loutish evangelical clergyman soon to be installed as pastor of St. Mary the Virgin, a High Church parish in Norfolk. Insisting on being called "Bob" and often referring to himself in the third person, Dexter is set on removing all traces of "idolatry" and Papistry from his new church, causing much consternation among the parishioners. When he's found bludgeoned to death in the church, fingerprints point to a young Anglican priest who hires David to defend him. Lucy and David must sort through various Anglo-Catholic and evangelical clergy and laity, animal-rights activists and the victim's browbeaten family to find the killer, all the while trying to determine the future of their own relationship. Two additional deaths and the seduction of a young woman also occur--in keeping with the book's tone of high gentility, offstage--before David and Lucy determine who did what to whom and why. Charles entertains with well-drawn characters, a serviceable plot--though no real surprises--and a deftly explored High Church milieu.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.