Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 35: Elizabeth Elliot

Elizabeth Elliot is a lifelong Quaker, and has just been elected the clerk of her Harvard Square meeting. Where Quakers do not have clergy, the clerk takes on many of the administrative duties for the meeting that a priest or other religious would for a church or similar community (though the clerk may also record any agreement made during a worship meeting).

Elizabeth is worried about her ability to handle the clerk position, and her concerns aren't helped when another member is killed in his garden. The police arrest a homeless man who the member occasionally hired to help in his garden, but Elizabeth thinks that the killing was more likely inspired by the rumored changes the member was going to make to his will.  Using her natural investigatory talents, backed up by a lifetime of Quaker practice and moral teaching, Elizabeth solves the first in a series of murders, both in Cambridge and beyond.

And as is the case with so many of these series, the author writes from a certain area of experience. Irene Allen is the pen name of Dr. E. Kirsten Peters, a geology professor from Washington state who is also a practicing Quaker. She earned her doctorate at Harvard, and attended meetings in Cambridge.