Book Log 2021 #25: Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman

David Small is the new rabbi for a Convervative temple in a Boston suburb, and while he's personable he doesn't quite mesh with the committee that runs the temple. The rabbi is bookish, while the committee thinks they may want someone whose more focused on fundraising and supporting the growth of their community.

This tension comes to a head when a young woman is found murdered on temple grounds, and evidence suggests that the rabbi is the killer. But it turns out the rabbi's academic nature is actually well-suited to applying logic to the evidence at hand, and working with the local (Catholic) police chief, he not only sets out to clear his name, but figure out who actually committed the murder.

You don't find mystery solving rabbis everywhere, and the shifting points of view - you get chapters focusing on the rabbi, the committee, and even the victim before her untimely demise - further sets this book apart from your standard murder mystery. But there was still something about this book where I couldn't really connect with it. I don't know if it's the prose feeling a little old-fashioned or what, but I just felt kind of meh about the whole thing.

Which is too bad, as I had a couple of external factors that wanted me to like the book (the author is also a BU alum, and the town in the series is based on Marblehead). The books in this series were also adapted into the short-lived TV show Lannigan's Rabbi if you'd rather watch than read.