Mrs. Malory: Death of a Dean

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable literate Miss Marple for the 1990s - races along.
Review: Hazel Holt writes confidently and spiritedly, and this outing is no exception. This time the plot allows her to indulge her fondness for Stratford-upon-Avon (elsewhere the series visits Oxford) and the concerns of a rural dweller shine through here and there, convincing us that this is an author with knowledge of her settings.

In this novel, Sheila Mallory investigates the sudden death of an unpleasant cleric that she has known since childhood. There are plenty of juicy suspects, and plenty of echoes of the novels of Barbara Pym (whose literary executor Ms. Holt was) in the details of rural and church life. Her busy, confiding tone embraces one, and one almost believes that Taviscombe exists.

Mrs. Mallory's relations with the police are perhaps the weak point of this series - even in the jovial West Country one finds it difficult to believe that professionals would let a late middle aged widow tell them what's what - but then detective fiction of this sort requires some suspension of belief.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this, and other books in this series, and I look forward to seeing many more.