This is the final book of the "Roth Trilogy," and takes place 20 years before events in The Judgement of Strangers, the second book in the series.

This story is told from the perspective of Wendy Appleyard, a young woman who is estranged from her husband and stays with her best friend Janet, who is married to young minister David Byfield. Author Andrew Taylor continues his exceptional writing and gives us an excellent character sketch of Wendy, as well as a very insightful look at a family that is rapidly disintegrating.

The story is for the most part very satisfying as it becomes something of a historical dig by Wendy that serves as the capstone to the history behind the Roth Trilogy. Taylor knows how to keep his readers happy.

He also knows how to leave us guessing. It is almost as if this story could lead onto another story (but it doesn't), as Wendy encounters some roadblocks in her digging (that help answer some questions from The Judgement of Strangers, but does so by leaving open more questions.

The series as a whole is very solid, very well written and very satisfying. ( )

With The Roth Trilogy of which THE OFFICE OF THE DEAD is the last published, but the first in strict chronological order of events, Andrew Taylor attempted to do something alarmingly strange.
Now I've finished reading all three, I feel like I should go back and read them all again. The author says I can read them in any order, but I suspect that is not really so. I think also it will help if you read them all within a short time frame, not, as I have done, over an extended period.

It is not just the linked histories of the Appleyards and the Byfields that bind the novels together as one, but the presence throughout of the rather sinister (or was he, as some characters insist, a "good" man, ?), Canon Francis Youlgreave. ( )

A favorite re-read. ( )