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As detailed as a lot was, some other aspects could’ve done with more elaboration. Midway through this book Eurovision with Celine Dion was mentioned. It was only then that I recalled a podcast with Richard Coles, where he explained his book was set in the 80’s. This is not mentioned anywhere, neither in the book itself nor the blurb. What’s the point of a historic setting if this isn’t mentioned anywhere? That points the way to the second volume: threatened pastoral reorganisation has been staved off only temporarily, we sense, and the author hints that it will be resurrected, with murderous consequences. I can hardly wait.
The book started well and the initial murder was sufficiently well carried out to spark my interest but then the book really sagged. The story wasn’t bad but there was just so much detail that the plot became bogged down. The story was set in the late eighties and this was primarily established by many updates about what Daniel and his mother were watching on TV. There was just too much incidental information that did nothing to give us extra information about the characters or the plot.What was with all the pretentious words/phrases? For the first chapter or two I didn't mind. Oh how nice I thought, it's not dumbed down. Then the novelty wore off. As readers we were expected to be familiar with a load of French and Latin phrases and some pretty hard vocab. I didn't understand why; I can't imagine the cast of characters would really have used that language, so maybe it was just the author showing off. Whatever it was, it was quite annoying. There were also a lot of historical and literary references and ecclesiastical terminology.
Canon Daniel Clement is Rector of Champton. He has been there for eight years, living at the Rectory alongside his widowed mother – opinionated, fearless, ever-so-slightly annoying Audrey – and his two dachshunds, Cosmo and Hilda.I feel fairly confident that I will as the characters grow on me the novels will continue to improve. It was bad. I already mentioned the indistinguishable characters, but what about the poor dialogues? They were terrible. If you like your murder mystery to contain any degree of sleuthing, you may be bemused. Events seem to unfold around Canon Clement without him taking even a cursory interest.
Canon Daniel Clement is Rector of Champton, a small village with its own stately home owned by Bernard de Floures. The most exciting thing to happen in Champton is the argument as to whether the church should install a lavatory or a buttery for the flower arrangers, then Bernard de Floures' alcoholic cousin is found by Daniel, murdered in one of the pews, with a pair of secateurs no less! But no sooner have the press departed to pastures new and the village returned to some sort of normality, than another body is found floating in the lake.
English villages are notorious havens for murderers – think of all the untimely deaths to have taken place across the county of Midsomer or in Agatha Raisin’s new home of Carsely in the Cotswolds. Now, with a nod to its most famous predecessor, Miss Marple’s home of St Mary Mead, the quintessentially English village of Champton joins the fray. “Two murders… in as many weeks. That must surely be way above the odds for an English country village, even St Mary Mead. What on earth is going on?” says the daughter of one of the victims. When Daniel announces a plan to install a lavatory in church, the parish is suddenly (and unexpectedly) divided: as lines are drawn, long-buried secrets come dangerously close to destroying the apparent calm of the village. But between a family of idle aristocrats, embittered clam frogs and the son of a punk-looking Lord, he has a good range of suspects. Canon Daniel Clement was a likeable main character but I couldn’t quite see him as a solver of murders. As always in this type of novel, there were a host of other characters from the nearby Lord of the Manor to the women who run the flower arranging. The most memorable of these was probably Audrey, Canon Clements mother who definitely has her own opinions about what is going on and misses nothing. Most of the other characters were sadly, pretty forgettable. I found Canon Clement to be a bit of a non-entity. He's not quite as mean-spirited and whiny as his fellow fictional rev-sleuth Sidney Chambers, but apart from "fed up with certain members of the family" and "a little creative with parish statistics" he doesn't seem to have much personality. (His mother and brother on the other hand would make an excellent sleuthing team...)
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