I am a lapsed high Anglican: or rather someone who had suddenly saw light at about 18 and walked decisively away from it, a self-declared unbeliever. I retain, though, an affection for traditional hymns, the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer and that’s probably why I enjoy (The Reverend) Richard Coles’s Canon Clements novels. Set in the early 1990s they are full of nostalgia for a time when canons still lived in big drafty rectories, were pally with the local gentry and, because there was only a single parish to run, knew everyone in the community. The end of an era.
They are murder stories with Daniel Clements, who is quietly and inactively gay, solving mysteries alongside his friend Neil who’s a local police officer. Of course the plots are wildly, gloriously implausible but I’ve never read a work of detective fiction with a believable narrative. That’s not the point. The puzzle element is fun and Coles has created a totally believable cast of characters – the sort of people I’m delighted to spend time with, After all Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple are as unlikely as they are engaging. In our own time you could say the same for Roy Grace, Ruth Galloway or Karen Pirie but my goodness they’re entertaining. So is Daniel Clements.
In the ongoing world that Coles has created so evocatively, Daniel’s mother, Audrey, is busy with her cooking, mild snobbery, dotty pride, kindness and competence. Slightly more distant is her other son Theo, a mildly successful actor who visits, especially at Christmas. Honoria, daughter of the irascible Bernard, outmoded Lord of the Manor, is down to earth, modern, attractive and fun
This new Canon Clements story is a seasonal novella which gives us Audrey cooking Christmas dinner for ten, at short notice, because there’s an issue at the big house so she invites four extra people including the De Floures family’s rather ghastly cousins from America. It’s an ultra traditional occasion (although Audrey has secretly bought ready-made mincemeat from the Cash & Carry) with crackers, charades, strained group dynamics and Audrey’s “famous” bread sauce. Coles helpfully gives us the recipe at the end.
But before we get to any of that we attend the Christmas Eve afternoon service, Midnight Mass and the service on Christmas morning – all shot through with Daniel’s thoughts and observations and very funny as well at catapaulting me back to my childhood and adolescence. Coles’s witty observations often make me laugh aloud “… and after everyone had resolved the peculiarly English challenge of managing side plate, forks, cups and saucers and teaspoons while sitting on a sofa …”
It’s arguably the gentlest murder mystery ever because one is four fifths into the book before anyone dies and then it’s assumed to be natural causes until Neil and Dan spot something amiss and come up with a theory.
Just the job for a winter’s evening in the run-up to Christmas.
Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves: A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
