A Fatal Advent

Heaven only knows why someone would tell a student to read this type of book for any class, if it wasn't on writing mystery books. Even though the original release of this mystery wasn't that long ago (1989), it still comes across a bit as an older type of mystery similar to British ones written by authors like P.D. James. This writer is not in the same class as P.D. James at all, but the book is a fairly decent mystery which involves a woman of the cloth (a reverend) in the U.S. and in a large city (New York). A visit from a noted Episopalian dean turns a bit wrong after he's found lying dead at the bottom of some stairs in the parish house, and it is too obvious that the fall could not have been accidental. The Reverend Claire Aldington becomes involved because it's her parish house, and she happens to know the detective in charge of it personally. It seems as if one too many of the people in her church have things to hide, and the problem is which one is enough of a problem to cause them to commit murder. The reverend sets out to find out what is going on in her house, when another person is murdered and when some of the boys of their very well-known boys choir become involved. A fairly good mystery, probably more of a woman's taste in mystery rather than a hard-boiled criminal novel that a man would prefer... Karen Sadler