The Office of the Dead
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The final novel in Andrew Taylor’s ground-breaking Roth trilogy, which was adapted into the acclaimed drama Fallen Angel. A powerful thriller for fans of S J Watson.
Janet Byfield has everything Wendy Appleyard lacks: she’s beautiful; she has a handsome husband, a clergyman on the verge of promotion; and most of all she has an adorable little daughter, Rosie. So when Wendy’s life falls apart, it’s to her oldest friend, Janet, that she turns.
At first it seems as to Wendy as though nothing can touch the Byfields’s perfect existence in 1950s Cathedral Close, Rosington, but old sins gradually come back to haunt the present, and new sins are bred in their place. The shadow of death seeps through the Close, and only Wendy, the outsider looking in, is able to glimpse the truth. But can she grasp it’s twisted logic in time to prevent a tragedy whose roots lie buried deep in the past?
Reviews
Final novel in Andrew Taylor’s powerful Roth Trilogy: ‘With all due deference to its heavenly virtues, this is a hellishly good novel’ – Frances Fyfield, Sunday Express
‘Masterly… will have the reader turning back to check the identities of Taylor’s ambiguous characters and relish his fine writing’ Gerald Kaufman, Scotsman
‘It is in the domestic sphere that Taylor triumphs… A highly sinister piece of work’ Natasha Cooper, TLS
‘The writing is consistently good’
Sunday Times
About the author
Andrew Taylor is the author of a number of novels, including the Dougal and Lydmouth crime series, the psychological thrillers Bleeding Heart Square and The Anatomy of Ghosts, the ground-breaking Roth Trilogy, which was adapted into the acclaimed drama Fallen Angel, and The American Boy, his No. 1 bestselling historical novel which was a 2005 Richard & Judy Book Club choice.
He has won many awards, including the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger, an Edgar Scroll from the Mystery Writers of America, the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Award (the only author to win it twice) and the CWA’s prestigious Diamond Dagger, awarded for sustained excellence in crime writing. He also writes for the Spectator.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Maiden ladies who would make Miss Marple smile and villains as vile as Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter populate this witty, urbane but dark third volume in Taylor's Roth Trilogy (The Four Last Things and The Judgement of Strangers). Was Isabella of Roth really incinerated by evil forces centuries ago? Can Wendy and Henry Appleyard prevent a reprise of her murder? These questions underlie Taylor's 20th novel and demonstrate why he's earned a Creasy Award. Wendy flees 1950s London to escape her philandering husband, Henry, and takes refuge with chum Janet Blyfield in the seminary town of Rosington. She begins work as the cathedral library cataloguer and stumbles on an ancient mystery surrounding Victorian poet-priest Francis Youlgreave. Eventually, a reformed Henry, risking everything to get Wendy back, joins in the sleuthing. They research vicious acts of vandalism and murder--possibly perpetrated by the unholy man of God, Youlgreave. The plot expands with Wendy's secret attraction to Janet's clergyman spouse, David, and the arrival of Janet's demented father, John Treevor. Soon, animal carcasses and human corpses litter the Dark Hostelry, the Blyfields' moldering parsonage. Wendy, impelled by love for her friends, dodges personal danger to solve the wicked riddle. A melancholy denouement turns the case topsy-turvy. While the books of the Roth Trilogy may be read independently, for maximum enjoyment they ought to be read in sequence.
