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Published in USA
Apr 2012
400 pages
Genre: Noir
Publication Information
It is 1953, the coronation year of Queen Elizabeth II. Sidney Chambers, vicar of Grantchester and honorary canon of Ely Cathedral, is a thirty-two-year-old bachelor. Tall, with dark brown hair, eyes the color of hazelnuts, and a reassuringly gentle manner, Sidney is an unconventional clerical detective. He can go where the police cannot.
Together with his roguish friend, inspector Geordie Keating, Sidney inquires into the suspect suicide of a Cambridge solicitor, a scandalous jewelry theft at a New Year's Eve dinner party, the unexplained death of a jazz promoter's daughter, and a shocking art forgery that puts a close friend in danger. Sidney discovers that being a detective, like being a clergyman, means that you are never off duty, but he nonetheless manages to find time for a keen interest in cricket, warm beer, and hot jazz - as well as a curious fondness for a German widow three years his junior.
With a whiff of Agatha Christie and a touch of G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown, The Grantchester Mysteries introduces a wonderful new hero into the world of detective fiction.
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"Runcie launches a promising new clerical series with this collection of interlocking short whodunits featuring a latter-day Father Brown, Canon Sidney Chambers." - Publishers Weekly
"This is a strong series debut with an affable amateur detective set against a post-World War II England that is both evocative and informative. A gentle mystery read with strong appeal for devotees of ecclesiastical and English village mysteries." - Library Journal
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James Runcie is an award-winning film-maker and the author of eight novels. Sidney Chambers and The Shadow of Death, the first in "The Grantchester Mysteries" series, was published in 2012, soon followed by Sidney Chambers and The Perils of the Night, Sidney Chambers and The Problem of Evil and Sidney Chambers and The Forgiveness of Sins. In November 2014, PBS aired Grantchester, a prime-time six-part series starring James Norton as Sidney Chambers. Season Two ran in 2016.
Runcie lives in London and Edinburgh.
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