Murder at St. Anne's Well-Plotted but....

 

MURDER AT ST. ANNE’S (2021)

By J. R. Ellis

Thomas &  Mercer, 283 pages

★★★

 

 

 

Murder at St. Anne’s is Book Seven of J(ohn) R. Ellis’ “A Yorkshire Murder” series. It takes place in Knaresborough (a real place) and involves the slaying of a Church of England minister in line to become the next bishop of Kendal. That’s bad enough but the victim is a woman, the Rev. Clare Wilcox, and her head was brutally smashed by the pulpit of her parish church. No discernible weapon is in evidence that could inflict such a crushing blow, nor could any human possibly wield such an object.

 

Making sense of this is the job of Detective Chief Inspector Jim Oldroyd, whose sister the Rev. Alison Oldroyd was Clare’s friend, former mentor, and the last person to whom Clare spoke before she was killed. Wilcox left behind her husband Jeremy, a doctor, and their two daughters away at university, Jenny and Fiona. It’s all the more baffling given that just about everyone thought Clare was a wonderful person and a fine pastor—even those so old-fashioned that they disapproved of female clerics.

 

It’s no wonder that many at St. Anne’s entertain the idea that the murderer was a ghost. It seems that many parishioners since the 15^th century claim to have seen a monk appear and disappear, he presumably one accused of being a Lollard heretic who was hurled from a cliff into the River Nidd gorge. Before his fatal chucking, the monk uttered a curse that would endure until the church (Roman Catholic back then) acknowledged its crime in executing him. Several gruesome murders subsequently took place, though none since the 19^th century. Try telling that to parishioners who’ve sworn they’ve heard strange noises inside the church and have seen fleeting glimpses of a cowled figure.

 

Ellis fashions his murder mystery in the style of M. R. James (1862-1936), one of Britain’s exemplars of Gothic ghost tales, and each new chapter is prefaced with a short excerpt from James' Barchester stories. Oldroyd is a rationalist who takes his queues from his psychologist partner Deborah. His subordinates Detective Sergeants Andy Carter and DS Stephane Johnson also adhere to logic, though Andy’s more squeamish about ghostly matters, as he admits when he and Oldroyd are forced to spend the night in the old stone church when Biblical snowstorms stall their investigations.

 

Like many U.K. churches, St. Anne’s has an ageing congregation—also an eccentric one. There is no shortage of persons of interest. Clare’s husband automatically goes to the top of the list–they are the ones most often guilty of a wife’s demise–but Jeremy appears to have been shattered by the news. Church warden Donald Avison freely admits he didn’t think women should administer sacraments, but professes he liked Clare. That’s true also of Maisie Baxter, another person who doesn't cotton to female ministers. Avison advises Oldroyd to look into the shabby hobo and heavy drinker seen hanging around the burial ground; if not he, perhaps organist Harvey Ferguson whom Avison is sure is a “disgusting pervert” (gay). Baxter fingers parish treasurer Olive Bryson, who misappropriated funds and had to answer to Rev. Wilcox. There is also busybody Violet Saunders, who cleans the church and can't possibly be as clueless as she seems, and Oldroyd isn’t too keen on other church officials such as the local bishop, the archdean, or Robyn Eastby, the assistant minister who seems overly eager to help out. Two problems: everyone has an alibi and none of them could have inflicted that much physical damage to the victim. Plus, the drunken hobo, Donald Tanner, isn’t such a bad bloke after all.

 

Even before the body and assault count rises, Oldroyd pays a visit to local historian and secondhand bookseller Austin Eliot to find out more about the ghost and the church. Before the dust settles a lot of things come into play: a cabinet, a bit of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum,” progressive politics, infidelities, the very modern dark web, and not-new-at-all misogyny and homophobia.

 

 I would call Murder at St. Anne’s as a well-plotted but stylistically inelegant novel. Ellis wisely kept the book short, as the murder motive seems pretty obvious to everyone except the investigators and readers would soon weary of the strip tease. The novel has thrilling moments and strong characters, but Ellis frames everything in ways that are often as old-fashioned as some of St. Anne’s parishioners. But if you were ask me if I’d like to visit Knaresborough if I get back to Yorkshire, my answer is you bet your chains and belfries I would.

 

Rob Weir