You’re not seriously thinking of having jazz in church, are you?”
“Why not?” Sidney replied.
“Well, you can never tell if the notes are being played in the right order.”
“That’s the wonder of jazz, Mary. There’s no right way and there’s no order.”
“Don’t people get very lost?”
“You can’t get lost if you’ve got rhythm, Mary.”
James Runcie’s Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death brings to life Sidney Chambers, a clergyman who loves moonlighting as a detective, not his true calling.
As most detective stories go, Sidney Chambers, repeatedly finds himself getting drawn to inexplicable situations, despite his best intentions to stay away.
A suspect suicide of a Cambridge solicitor, a surreptitious jewellery theft at New Year’s Eve, the unexplained death of a jazz promoter’s daughter, and a shocking art forgery that puts a close friend in danger - all this and more keep Chambers, more busy than he should be.
Chambers is technically the priest in charge at the Church of England in Grantchester, which is situated just outside Cambridge.
As is common with every detective novel, our hero also has a trusty, roguish friend in Inspector Geordie Keating, and they go about town, solving mystery after mystery.
Along the course of the events in the book, Chambers discovers that being a detective, like being a man of religion, means that you can never really be off duty.
But he somehow manages to find time for a motley crew of interests like cricket, warm beer, jazz and the beautiful German widow.
The novel makes use of six loosely interconnected stories that are woven together to give the illusion of a novel.
Sidney Chambers, despite being a vicar, does not alienate readers; he’s as human as any one of us.
The stories take place between 1953 and 1954, so you see the coronation getting a mention, as does the end of food rationing.
Not once does James Runcie typecast his characters to make the reader more comfortable.
For instance, keeping in tune with the time being portrayed, Sidney Chambers is somewhat portrayed as a homophobic person.
It doesn’t seem out of place or politically incorrect, keeping the time and place in mind.
One of the only drawbacks in the entire collection is that a couple of stories seem unnecessarily drawn out, with important plot points revealed too late in the story, giving no room for the reader to speculate.
It doesn’t bode too well for good mystery reading.
However, if you’re a fan of the likes of Agatha Christie and G K Chesterton, this new hero will have you captivated till the very end, and it’s a quick read to boot.
