Death of a Dean

Sheila Malory’s actor friend David Beaumont comes to visit her from Stratford, where he might be about to lose the perfect cottage that he bought there as he has fallen on hard times (not unusual for actors) and can’t afford the mortgage. His brother Francis has done very well for himself in the Church of England, becoming the Dean of a nearby town, but Francis is a sanctimonious jerk who refuses to help his brother in his hour of need. When Francis dies suddenly, it takes little time for the coroner to determine that he was poisoned, and since David had been in his company at the time of his last meal *and* quarreled very loudly with his brother while there, he is very obviously the main suspect. But Sheila is convinced of his show more innocence, and begins to probe other possibilities: the doormat wife, the cowed son and daughter, and possibly a few others who had no cause to love Francis…. This is the seventh Mrs. Malory novel, and fits in quite nicely with the rest of the series: in this one, we are mostly in Sheila’s own territory, with her son and her friends all around her, and with a murder victim who, well, let us say will not be missed by many. I very much enjoy the Miss Marple quality to these tales, complete with small English village and an amateur “sleuth” who just happens to know everybody; I also find it quite nostalgic to return to the 1990s setting - that does not seem terribly long ago to me, but more than a quarter century has passed since the publication of these books! I don’t believe it’s necessary to have read the previous books in order, since while various characters recur there is little change in their relationships and the author provides enough background to those relationships to keep the reader straight; recommended. show less