Murder Before Evensong: The instant no. 1 Sunday Times bestseller (Canon Clement Mystery)

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There was a lot of book before the first murder occurred and parish life did not seem unduly interrupted by it. 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.

The Vicar of Dibley type setting is entertaining; the canon himself is rather bland but has potential. 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.The ending and the murderer just felt empty and I just overall wished there was much more love towards the murder aspect of this book - seeing as it is the title of the book. And the style suits the content perfectly: wonderfully feline when it comes to jokes, but moving easily to unselfconscious wisdom when required. Champton joins St Mary Mead and Midsomer in the great atlas of fictional English villages where the crimes are as dastardly as the residents delightful. The time period of the tale is never directly revealed but I’d guess late ‘80s or early ‘90s based on clues peppered throughout (am I the only person who didn’t know Celine Dion won Eurovision in 1988.

There was an interminable amount of detail about the life of a rector, the prayers, the ceremonies, and a lot in Latin which meant nothing to me. He just stays there, doing what he normally does, until the last chapters of the book, where he has a certain, I don’t know, realisation?

Coles is a sharp observer of human nature, but his observations are tempered with both humour and compassion, and much of the pleasure in the book lies in the incidental asides.

The murder itself was an event so long coming that in the meantime I began to come up with alternative titles for the book. Second, this was like some nineteenth century novel that you got forced to read at school, billed as a funny detective story. As the police moves in and the bodies start piling up, Daniel is the only one who can try and keep his fractured community together… and catch a killer. First, when exactly was this book set, I'm sure if I could be bothered to piece together the clues I could work it out, late 1980s/early 1990s? the plotting is woefully underdone (it's the kind of murder where anyone could have done it so you have to pick by motive), the murderer unconvincing, and the motive even less so.In addition, frankly there are absolutely no clues whatsoever to help the reader guess the murderer and the identification of the murderer comes out of left-field. This was a decent read and a solid start to the Canon Clement series that left me thinking that it has a lot more to offer. In January 2011 The Reverend Richard Coles was appointed as the parish priest of St Mary the Virgin, Finedon in the Diocese of Peterborough. Canon Daniel Clement is an inscrutable and erudite detective, while four-legged sidekicks Hilda and Cosmo are his delightful foils.

Half of Daniel's (and his mother's) thoughts went straight over my head, too obtuse and loaded with religious terminology. The book started well and the initial murder was sufficiently well carried out to spark my interest but then the book really sagged. As the police moves in and the bodies start piling up, Daniel is the only one who can try and keep his community together… and catch a killer.I was a bit thrown near the beginning when it said Daniel was born during the Battle of Britain - I hadn’t realised that the story is set in the 1980s,so Daniel isn’t the ancient cleric with the centenarian mother that I had imagined.