Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Former MI5 spy turned cleric, Father Max Tudor is still vicar at St. Edwold's in the charming village of Nether Monkslip, and he is now married to the New Agey Awena and proud father to baby Owen. New responsibilities have necessitated the need for a curate. Before the appointee, Destiny Chatsworth, leaves London for her new post, she overhears two women talking about murder in Nether Monkslip! It turns out that the lord of Totleigh Hall has been decapitated while riding. As always, the mystery is as delicious as the tarts and as full of surprises as the Christmas cakes sold in the local bakery. The first three books in the Max Tudor series Wicked Autumn (2011), Fatal Winter (2012), and Pagan Spring (2013) have been nominated for Agatha Awards, and no wonder: she has the cozy formula and tone down pat, and she spices things up with a very handsome vicar, who wonders how long his bishop will put up with the fact that a rash of murders started in the sleepy village just when Max arrived. And what about that mysterious face of Jesus that can't be scrubbed away from the church's walls? A shocking conclusion to this fine entry will leave readers reeling.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Max Tudor worries whether he has somehow become a magnet for murder as violent death once again strikes Nether Monkslip, the English village where Max is adapting to life as a husband and parent, in Agatha Award-winner Malliet's subpar fifth cozy featuring the former MI5 agent turned priest (after 2014's Demon Summer). When the local lord of the manor goes for his evening horseback ride, someone stretches a length of wire across his lordship's path, with fatal results. Inspector Cotton, Max's friend on the force, asks him to assist with the investigation, which begins with the dead man's family: his two grown children, his bride, and his mother, known within the family as Crazy Caroline. Some readers may find that the many names that sound as though they come straight from Wodehouse-Fugglestone Parva, the Rev. Destiny Chatsworth-distract from the mystery. The cold calculation behind the murder and the resolution of a minor subplot will strike others as contrived and implausible. Agent: Vicky Bijur, Vicky Bijur Literary. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
At least one head rolls in clergyman/detective Max Tudor's fifth seasonally themed case.The country parish of Nether Monkslip is embroiled in drama, from church flower-rota skirmishes to the power plays of St. Edwold's Women's Institute. Maxen Tudor, formerly of MI5 and now vicar of St. Edwold's, is the object of much of the maneuvering. Extraordinarily handsome but quite unaware of it, and happily married to Welsh New Ager Awena Owen, he has no idea how devoted some of his parishioners are to him. With a baby at home and pressing clerical duties, Max doesn't have much time to ponder either the women's jostlings or St. Edwold's recently manifested miracle: the image of a bearded man that refuses to be painted over. Although Max has hired the Rev. Destiny Chatsworth, a friend and fellow theologian at Oxford, to help with the neighboring parishes in his care, he still has his hands full with such delicate tasks as persuading the local nobility to permit the annual autumn wind-up duck race on their property. Lord Bayer Baaden-Boomethistle of Totleigh Hall agrees reluctantly. He's distracted by his beautiful young second wife, who may be dallying with the virile estate manager; Peregrine, his wayward heir; Peregrine's frustrated sister; and the dowager viscountess, a dotty romance novelist. Walking his dog in the woods, Max discovers Baaden-Boomethistle's head, severed from his body by a carefully placed piano wire. Village suspicion falls on the widow, and Destiny, not given to malicious gossip, recalls a conversation she overheard in the steam room about an anonymous Nether Monkslip woman planning a hit on her husband. With his regular partner, DCI Cotton, Max takes on parental secrets, a treasure horde, a garden temple, and his all-too-prophetic dreams about a sinister man in a pair of unusual glasses who may send murder-magnet Max (A Demon Summer, 2014, etc.) down another path. Uneven tone, voice, and pacing don't seriously hamper Malliet's enjoyable blend of whimsy and homicide. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
