The Mortal Sickness

"The Mortal Sickness" by Andrew Taylor, published by St Martins Pr. As she investigates the murder of a woman found bludgeoned to death in a local church, journalist Jill Francis finds herself personally entangled in the lives of the residents of a small British village. Amazon.com Review Ever since Agatha Christie, small English villages have been haunted by murder most foul, disturbing the peace and quiet of the countryside, upsetting the vicar's wife, and lifting the edge of the lace curtains to show the darker sides of the eccentric inhabitants. So it is again with Andrew Taylor's tale of a woman murdered in the church vestry, apparently during the theft of a medieval chalice. The village's dirty secrets come gradually to light, in spite of the rather unskilled detective work of the distracted policeman leading the investigation and a nice but not terribly bright young newspaper reporter, who also provides some romantic tension. From Publishers Weekly In an English village that might otherwise seem timeless, Taylor (An Air That Kills, 1984) evokes life a few years after WWII by recalling that people complained about declining standards and women were dismissed from serious matters. Jill Francis, a young journalist, and Alec Sutton, the vicar, both new to Lydmouth, find Catherine Kymin, a woman with few friends and a crush on the vicar, dead in the church vestry. What's more, a medieval chalice and the Sunday collection are missing from the safe. Someone is also sending poison-pen letters around town about the vicar, the most virulent of which accuse Alec of theft and philandering. Detective Inspector Richard Thornhill, also new to Lydmouth, does the best he can with a detective constable who owes his promotion to his father's connections, a sergeant on leave who refuses to return phone calls in favor of following his lust, a superintendent under pressure to call in the Yard and his own increasingly ambivalent feelings about Jill. Though the case is solved within 48 hours, the story has a diffuse quality, perhaps as a result of the lack of a central character, a role held alternately by Jill, Alec and Richard, all of whom are worthy figures but none of whom grabs center stage. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus Reviews Secrets abound in the postWW II, conventional-seeming lives of the residents of Lydmouth, an English town much centered on its church--St. John's--where the gentle new vicar, Alec Sutton, is at odds with some of his parishioners. The congregation wants the church's 13th-century Lydmouth Chalice, kept locked in the vestry, to be sold for much needed repairs. Sutton has refused to go along, but the question becomes academic when the Chalice is stolen, the thief leaving behind the body of a regular churchgoer, Catherine Kymin, killed by a blow to the head. Jill Francis (An Air That Kills, 1995, not reviewed), a writer for the town's Gazette, is the forerunner of a dozen reporters who arrive to do a piece on the Chalice almost as the body is discovered. Meanwhile, a series of anonymous letters to town and church bigwigs muddies the waters for Inspector Thornhill and Sergeant Brian Kirby. Kirby is already unsettled by his secret affair with Jemima Orepool, the wanton, orphaned niece of church patron Sir Anthony Ruispidge, who's keeping her on a short leash, away from London's fleshpots. Kirby is not her only conquest, as becomes apparent after Jill gets bonked on the head in the barn of the Bull Hotel, and after yet another murder victim is discovered. The author rambles leisurely from one (mostly dysfunctional) relationship to another, dwelling at length on looks, sighs, and touches--revealing the killer early on in a story more given to fine-tuned domestic drama than to suspense. Still, intriguing enough to hold most readers to the finish. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Review Taylor carries on his admirable, if eccentric, task of creating a provincial mystery series set in postwar England. -- The New York Times Book Review, Marilyn Stasio Book details: 342 pages, published 1995. Order now on BookShops.in with fast, reliable delivery across India.