The Snares of Death

The Anglican Church is one church that runs the gamut of ways of worship from extreme evangelicalism to happy-clappy services and finally at the opposite pole the Anglo-Catholics. On the one hand a minister refers to himself as simple Bob Dexter, in the middle road there are the Vicars and then at the other end the celebrants are called priests and answer to Father Mark for instance. This mystery revolves around a situation where although east is east and so on the twain is trying to meet and in this instance the results are disastrous.

Beneath all the dog collars are mortal men who join the church for a variety of reasons, not always responding to a call. Some of these holy molys are far from even showing any Christian charity. The show more result is a fascinating look at how human vices lead to murder. I enjoyed the book and look forward to reading another in the series soon. show less

Evangelical pastor Bob Dexter takes over the staunchly Anglo-Catholic church of St. Mary the Virgin, South Barsham and proceeds to make a lot of enemies. He is found dead in the church with his head bashed in. The young priest accused of the murder asks for David Middleton-Brown to act as his solicitor. David is convinced he didn't do it. But who did?

A gripping and enjoyable mystery. I did wonder Bob Dexter was too unpleasant to be believable but I suppose he had to be for there to be that many suspects. I'm a little disappointed with the direction the overall story arc featuring the detective David Middleton-Brown and his sidekick Lucy Kingsley is taking.

The snares of death is the second "Book of Psalms mystery" by Kate Charles. Anglo-Catholic St. Mary the Virgin in England has a new vicar but, strangely he is an evangelical pastor of the worst kind, bigoted and intolerant. (How in the world he got the position is a mystery in itself - in the United States, each parish decides who they will call to be rector.) The minister starts dismantling the beloved items in the church, selling the items or destroying them and putting up tacky posters in their place. Then we have Wymondham Abbey, an animal rights organization, and an art gallery along with an array of interesting characters including solicitor David Middleton-Brown. Of course the minister is dead and there are so many suspects.

I show more found the novel slow going and the murder didn't happen until 2/3 through the book. It was never explained why the Anglican evangelical movement was so wacky! In the U.S., evangelical pastors are not this extreme except in a few well known cases. There were things about Middleton-Brown that were alluded to but unclear to me and were probably explained in the first book of the series. An average read and one for fans of Episcopal and Anglican priest mysteries show less