A Bedlam of Bones
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- $3.99
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- $3.99
Publisher Description
After the unsettling exploits in the Auvergne the vicar and his companions try to resume a life of moderate respectability. But the recent events cast a long shadow and they are soon in the grip of sinister repercussions. Who is the menacing blackmailer stalking the previous blackmailer and the bishop? Can the bishop survive the threat of being 'outed'? Why is there a body in the polyanthus bed and can Lavinia Birtle-Figgins really be as dippy as she seems?
These and other imponderables immerse the Reverend Francis Oughterard in a fresh web of danger and subterfuge while his animal 'minders', Maurice and Bouncer, try their best to make sense of all this human bedlam.
Praise for the series:
'I think this is tremendous - amusing and professional' - Dame Beryl Bainbridge
'E F Benson crossed with Jerome K. Jerome' - The Times audiobook review
'Perfect one-sitting summer read' - Laura Wilson
'An intriguingly quirky read!' - Leslie Phillips, OBE
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Being a clergyman is an exacting matter at the best of times, but the difficulties are compounded if one is also an assassin," declares the Rev. Francis Oughterard at the outset of Hill's diverting fifth mystery featuring the vicar of Molehill in 1950s Surrey (after 2010's Bones in High Places). Bishop Clinker, the vicar's superior, needs help. A blackmailer is threatening to expose "an absurd whimsical indiscretion" Clinker committed at Oxford in prewar days that the bishop prays his wife will never hear about. When the first body surfaces, Oughterard, who unapologetically admits to murdering one of his parishioners in an earlier outing, has no compunction about hiding the corpse. In separate chapters, the vicar's dog, Bouncer, and cat, Maurice, comment on the action in the same jokey argot as their owner. References to past cases, marked by footnotes throughout, may lead curious newcomers to previous books in a series that blithely mixes cozy elements with black farce.
