Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 26: Rev. Francis Oughterard

Set in 1950s Surrey, Oughterard is a little unusual among those we've encountered this Lentorama by being as likely to be involved in crime as he is in solving crime. The first book in the series sets up this dichotomy in later ones, with Oughterard not being a victim per se, but not really a willing participant in the various schemes that come his way. The series is also unique in that the stories are told from three points of view, two of which are from animals.

I have to admit I'm kind of intrigued by this series. There is also at least one spin-off novel featuring Oughterard's sister Primrose, an artist who gets into similar morally ambiguous situations. 

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 25: Theodora Braithwaite

Theodora is a deaconess and curate at Medewich Cathedral, and she gets pulled into her initial case when a woman interviewing to become the cathedral's secretary finds the head of a visiting - and controversial -priest resting on a baptismal font. Theodora reluctantly gets involved in the case, and her success in solving it sets her up for future cases, typically as she visits other cathedrals or takes on new positions.

The author of this series, D. M. Greenwood, once described herself as a "low level ecclesiastical civil servant," which makes me think that the series is in some respect semi-autobiographical. If nothing else, her career likely provided a wealth of source material from which she could develop mysteries.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solver

Day 24: Father Tom Christmas

Tom Christmas takes on a parish in the rural town of Thornford Regis after the murder of his wife in London, thinking that the change of scenery will help him and his nine year old daughter cope with their loss and regain a sense of security. Of course, those plans get blown up when a parishoner is found murdered in a drum. Father Christmas gets pulled into solving the crime as it appear that pretty much every member of his flock had some reason to want the man dead.

While the books in the series aren't necessarily set during the holidays, book titles and the general plot of each book are derived from "The Twelve Days of Christmas," though it's been a good ten years since the last novel in this series (there was a 2020 novella featuring Father Christmas that isn't part of the series). 

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 23: Sister Holiday

Sister Holiday teaches music at St. Sebastian's School in New Orleans, where she's settled in to life among the Sisters of the Sublime Blood, who took her in when she was at her lowest. She's not your typical nun, between the tattoos, smoking, and longing for an ex-girlfriend, but she's doing her best. Her foray into criminal investigation comes when a series of arson attacks hit the school, killing a friend. She looks into her fellow nuns, her students, and her own past, to figure out who is behind the fires.

This is the first novel in a planned series by Margot Douaihy, with a second book planned for this year. It's also the first book from Gillian Flynn Books, an imprint by the author of Gone Girl that seeks to publish books that are "propulsive and culturally incisive."

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 22: Bishop Henry Lapp

An elderly Amish bachelor dies in a fire, but it turns out that it wasn't an accident. The fire was intended to kill the man, and it's up to his bishop, Henry Lapp, to find the culprit and make sure that the man who was arrested - who Lapp knows is innocent - goes free. 

Lapp has the usual skills found by the protagonists in these series - keep observational skills, a good memory, and the logical ability to put things together - but he also seems to have an actual religious calling to solve cases, which is a little different from the other series that have come up here. Also different is that at some point Lapp suffered a traumatic brain injury, apparently the cause of at least some of his skills in this area. 

I did not know about the role of the bishop in Amish religious practice, and I thought this page did a good job of explaining what hierarchy there is in Amish congregations. I also didn't know that there was an Amish community in Colorado, but the San Luis Valley does in fact host a number of Amish communities.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 21: Sister Rose Callahan

Sister Rose is an eldress of a Shaker community of North Homage in Kentucky. Her first mystery involves the death of a "winter Shaker," a man who appears to have claimed Shaker beliefs in order to find shelter. While Rose wants to find the killer in order to serve justice and protect her fellow Believers, she also wants to minimize how much gets known about the killing outside of North Homage, as the locals are already suspicious about the community.

Future cases see Rose walking that same tightrope, but often with outside help provided by Gennie Malone, an orphan who was brought up at North Homage but opted to leave the community as an adult.

The series is written by Deborah Woodworth, using both her personal experience of growing up near Shaker sites in southern Ohio and academic experiencce from holding a Ph.D. in the sociology of religion. 

I'd always thought of the Shakers as a New York and New England phenomenon, but I think that's because the communities in those areas lasted the longest (including the one still operating in Maine). A number of communities opened in Ohio and Kentucky at the start of the 19th century, but they all closed by the time of the Depression (which is true of most Shaker communities generally). 

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 20: Sidney Chambers

Sidney Chambers is the vicar of the church of St. Andrew and St. Mary in Grantchester, a village near Cambridge. Chambers was reading theology at Cambridge prior to World War II, becoming ordained after the war. He is a bachelor, a fan of whiskey and jazz, and is friendly with a local police detective. That last bit comes in handy when a parishoner tells Chambers that they believe a recent death by suicide was actually foul play. Thus starts a series which not only sees Chambers solve crimes, but also deal with personal issues related to the war, his romantic life, and changes to British society.

Chambers was created by James Runcie, who was inspired by his father, former Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie.  He said he envisioned the stories winding up on the screen, which came to pass with the ITV series Grantchester (aired on PBS in the US).  The show became quite popular, and elevated its star, James Norton, to leave in order to puruse new opportunities. Out went Sidney Chambers, in came Will Davenport, another young vicar with a penchant for crime solving (who will himself be replaced for the upcoming ninth season).

The books, of course, do not see these changes, and detail how Sidney grows into his role as vicar and how he handles the various personal challenges that made his early years at Grantchester so difficult. I keep saying I'll read these, having watched Grantchester for a while, but still haven't gotten around to doing so.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 19: Simon Bede

The Rev. Dr. Simon Bede is an assistant to the Archbishop of Canterbury who also solves crimes, with the help of his friend and internationally-known photographer Helen Bullock. Though it may be that Bede is the one helping Bullock solve crimes, as the synopses I could find online for these novels paints her as more of the main character. How Bede manages to get away to help her (one of the books is set in Morocco) is unclear.

It's a short series, only four books, and it seems like the first two may be out of print as there was very little information online about them. And, as with so many sleuths covered so far, Bede is an Englishman created by an American, Barbara Byfield. Wikipedia suggests that she collaborated on the books with another author, Frank Tedeschi, but I only found him credited on the first book. 

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 18: Felicity Howard

Felicity Howard is an American studying for the Anglican priesthood at the College of the Transfiguration in Yorkshire. She is stunned when she finds one of her teachers, Father Domenic, bludgeoned to death, and another teacher, Father Antony, covered in his blood. While the police want Antony for the killing, Felicity follows the clues left for ber by Father Domenic in a cryptic poen and leaves the college with Father Antony so she can solve the killing.

While Felicity continues to solve crimes, her vocation becomes less certain. Will she continue onto the priesthood, opt to become a nun, or remain part of the laity so she can pursue other professional (and romantic) opportunities? 

This is one of several series written by Donna Fletcher Crow, whose other series are set in England and Scotland in various historical eras. Which is probably more fertile ground for period drama and mystery than her native Idaho.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 17: Sister Mary Helen

At 75, Sister Mary Helen could have chosen to retire, but not looking to slow down she opts to take on a teaching role at a San Francisco women's college. Not long after her arrival an earthquake strikes, and a body found in the rubble turns out to have been murdered, Police make and arrest, but Sister Mary Helen thinks they have the wrong person, and sets out to find the real killer.

Sister Mary Helen is helped in future cases by Sister Eileen, an Irish nun who is often her traveling companion. Cases mostly take place in and around San Francisco, but at least one book takes place in Ireland.

This series is at least one example of a clerical crime writer, as the author, Carol Anne O'Marie, was herself a nun of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. Her work as a nun centered on education (both teaching and administration), though she was also a newspaper editor for a time and co-founded a women's shelter. Which makes me wonder where she found the time to write.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 16: Father Robert Koesler

Bob Koesler is a priest at St. Joseph's in Detroit, and he gets into sleuthing when he helps solve the serial killing of priests and nuns, where the killer leaves each victim with a plain black rosary in their hands. From there, Koesler gets involved in solving crimes that primarily involve clergy or the church, often with the help (wanted or not) of other parish members.

There are over 20 books in this series, and it looks like Koesler ages in something like real time, as he's retired from being an active priest in the last few books. It also looks like the later books tackle some of the issues facing the contemporary Catholic church (maybe earlier books do, too, but in the synopses I read it didn't seem so).

The author, William X. Kienzle, was a laicized Catholic priest who reportedly left the priesthood due to the church's opposition to letting divorced people remarry. His post-clerical work focused on writing and editing, though he did make a foray into movies by adapting his first book, The Rosary Murders, into a film that starred Donald Sutherland as Koesler. Kienzle shared screenwriting credit with fellow Detroiter Elmore Leonard.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crim Solvers

Day15: Abbess Helewise

12th century England is apparently fertile territory for writers in this genre, as this is the third series mentioned in this Lentorama set in that era. In this case, though, the action takes place after the end of The Anarchy.

At the start of the series, Richard the Lionhearted is at the start of his reign, and he orders a release of prisoners in order to build up his standing with the public. Shortly after this release, a novice nun from Hawkenlye Abbey is found murdered, and Richard dispatches a knight, Sir Josse d'Acquin, to the abbey to deterime if one of the released prisoners may have committed the crime (thus reflecting badly on the king). It's at the abbey where Sir Josse meets Abbess Helewise, who gets pulled into the investigation and helps discover the perpetrator.

This is just the first of several deaths that Helewise and Sir Josse investigate, and as also often happens in these series we also get to see a fair amount of their personal lives and relationships. The series doesn't seem to be as involved with royal goings on as others, though kings and queens do make the occasional appearance.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 14: Father Dowling

Father Dowling is a Catholic priest in Fox River, Illinois, and shortly after taking up his parish he gets a call from a panicked elderly parishoner. He tries to calm her down, and whatever success he has is mitigated by the parishoner turning up dead. 

It turns out that the detective on the case was in the same seminary class as Dowling, but left after a year. Together, the pair solve the mystery, the first of many that they'd tackle together.

Written by Ralph McInerny, the novels spawned the TV series Father Dowling Mysteries, with Tom Bosley starring as Father Dowling. Other than the title and character names the show didn't use much from the novels, as the setting was switched to Chicago and none of the stories from the books were used for TV.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 13: Simon Ark

Simon is a man in his 60s who gets pulled into solving crimes that are often related or tinged with the supernatural or occult. This makes some sense given his background: Ark is a 2000 year old Coptic priest who was cursed to spend eternity roaming the Earth (either for not allowing Jesus to rest while carrying his cross en route to the crucifixion, or for writing a gospel so pious that God couldn't decide if Ark should go to heaven or hell).

Ark was the creation of Edward D. Hoch, whose detective fiction included a few novels but was primarily focused on short stories. He had over 950 published, with at least a dozen series focused on different main characters. Simon Ark was one of those, with 39 stories in total (a Simon Ark story was Hoch's first published work). 

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 12: Dame Averilla

Dame Averilla is the infirmarer at the Benedictine Abbey of the Virgin Mary and Edward, King and Martyr, in Shaftesbury. While political unrest roils the countryside, Averilla has to track down a collection of herbal lore that has gone missing (hampering her ability to tend to the sick, one would think). She also gets involved in the perhaps related disappearance of Dame Agnes, whom many in the abbey believe is possessed.

If you noticed some similarities here between Averilla and another crime-solving healer located at a Benedictine abbey during the period of unrest known as The Anarchy, you would not be alone. There are a a couple of differences worth noting. 

The first is that Averilla has to also manage internal unrest between nuns of Anglo-Saxon background and the new, young nuns who are daughters of the Norman elite. We do not see this sort of tension at the Benedictine abbey in Shrewsbury, though there is some conflict there related to class and education.

The other difference is that there are only three books in the Averilla series, one a prequel. So if there is any ripping off being done, it didn't last.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 11: Brother Rodric Chandler

The throne of England is rumored to be under threat from Henry Bolingbroke, cousin to King Richard II, who is now back from exile in France. As tension between the two rise, a novice nun from Barking Abbey is found murdered, and the clerical connection leads the coroner to ask his friend, Brother Rodric, to help figure out why the nun was killed and who did the deed.

Rodric is reluctant to help, what with already acting as a spy for Bolingbroke. But he takes up the case, and as you might expect the murder and the political intrigue are related, and put Rodric in a difficult spot not only due to his loyalties, but due to the danger he is in if he's revealed to be in Bolingbroke's camp.

Rodric was created by Cassandra Clark, who has another, longer-running series which will show up later in this Lentorama. As far as I can tell the two series are not related.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 10: Mother Lavinia Grey

Either the abbess or vicar (or both?) of St. Bede's, an Episcopal church in New Jersey, Lavinia (or Mother Vinnie, as I've seen her called at least once) was the prime suspect in the murder of a bishop who was critical of her attempts to save her parish. But when she helped solve that case, she found herself using her newly-discovered detecting skills in other cases. Along the way she also enters into an on and off relationship with one of the local police.

There are, at least superficially, some similarities between Mother Vinnie and Callie Anson, the curate covered in a previous post. Both are Anglicans who don't always mesh well with the higher ups, and both have complicated romantic relationships with cops. Maybe the authors can work out a crossover novel? 

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 9: Jabal Jarrett

Freda Bream created the Rev. Jabal Jarrett when she turned to writing in her retirement, turning out 13 novels featuring the Auckland clergyman that every page I can find about the book labels as 'eccentric.'

How he's eccentric is another question, as I can find not much more than the barest information about the character or his debut appearance in Island of Fear. I did come across this page which gives just enough information for me to think that these books were never published in the US (and likely out of print everywhere else).

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 8: Rabbi David Small

David Small is the new, bookish rabbi at a temple in suburban Boston. It's not clear that he's fitting in, and a murder on temple grounds - in which Small is a leading suspect - doesn't help his popularity. But he's able to help crack the case by applying his highly trained and logical mind to the facts at hand, starting a series that spanned several books and a TV adaptation.

I read the first book in the series a few years ago, had mixed feelings about it, and haven't gone back to the series since. Part of the problem was that the reading experience wasn't great, as I read the book using Hoopla and it didn't format that well on my phone. So if I can find physical copies of the books I may be more inclined to get back into them.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 7: Callie Anson

After the tumultuous end of her engagement, Callie Anson is looking forward to what she thinks will be the quieter life as the curate of a London church (which makes her more or less assistant clergy to the person already assigned). It turns out that the religious life isn't that much more peaceful, notably when she interacts with other male clergy who don't think women should be ordained.

When one of those dissenting vicars turns up dead, Callie's friend and mentor (who defended her choice of vocation to the dead man) is a prime suspect. Callie turns to her faith - and some innate sleuthing abilities - in order to prove her friend's innocence.

It looks like as the series goes on Callie is less involved with sleuthing and more with bringing her unique perspective to what's going on in the parish. There are still deaths, but it's not clear from the synopses I've read if she's materially involved with the investigations. 

I found it interesting that the author of the series, Kate Charles, isn't English at all, but from the American midwest. Maybe Anglican parishes here aren't conducive to crime solving prelates.