Sidney Chambers and The Forgiveness of Sins: Grantchester Mysteries 4

by James Runcie

Overview

The fourth in The Grantchester Mystery Series, and the inspiration for the primetime PBS/Masterpiece television series, Grantchester.

The loveable full-time priest and part-time detective, Canon Sidney Chambers, continues his sleuthing adventures in 1960's Cambridge.

On a snowy Thursday morning in Lent 1964, a stranger seeks sanctuary in Grantchester's church, convinced he has murdered his wife. Sidney and his wife Hildegard go for a shooting weekend in the country and find their hostess has a sinister burn on her neck. Sidney's friend Amanda receives poison pen letters when at last she appears to be approaching matrimony. A firm of removal men 'accidentally' drop a Steinway piano on a musician's head outside a Cambridge college. During a cricket match, a group of schoolboys blow up their school Science Block. On a family holiday in Florence, Sidney is accused of the theft of a priceless painting.

Meanwhile, on the home front, Sidney's new curate Malcolm seems set to become rather irritatingly popular with the parish; his baby girl Anna learns to walk and talk; Hildegard longs to get an au pair and Sidney is offered a promotion.

Entertaining, suspenseful, thoughtful, moving and deeply humane, these six new stories are bound to delight the clerical detective's many fans.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781632861030
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	05/19/2015
Series:	Grantchester , #4
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

James Runcie is an award-winning film-maker, playwright and literary curator. He is the author of twelve novels that have been translated into twelve languages, including the seven books in the Grantchester Mysteries series. He has been Artistic Director of the Bath Literature Festival, Head of Literature and Spoken Word at the Southbank Centre, London, and Commissioning Editor for Arts on BBC Radio 4. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in Scotland.

www.jamesruncie.com www.grantchestermysteries.com

@james_runcie

Editorial Reviews

★ 03/30/2015
Set in the 1960s, British author Runcie’s outstanding fourth collection of clerical mysteries (after 2014’s Sidney Chambers and the Problem of Evil) smoothly mixes clever puzzles with meditations on spiritual issues. The title story presents a truly baffling problem: Josef Madara, the principal violinist in a quartet, comes to Canon Sidney Chambers’s Cambridge church seeking sanctuary; Madara claims that he woke up that morning in his hotel room to find his wife covered in blood. When Sidney’s friend on the force, Geordie Keating, accompanies Sidney to the hotel, the room is empty and spotless. In later entries, Sidney attempts to help a woman escape an abusive husband and to show that a death caused by a falling piano was no accident. Sidney and the entire supporting cast, including a new curate with a fondness for cake, are all vividly portrayed, and comparisons to G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown books are amply justified. Agent: David Godwin, David Godwin Associates (U.K.). (May)

Publishers Weekly

Chambers is a winning protagonist, fervid in his faith yet prone to human frailty, and his exploits provide multiple pleasures for readers of cozies and beyond. The full Grantchester mystery series, projected to include six novels, will have a new entry in each of the next two years, and readers, as well as fans of the PBS show based on this series, should treasure them.” —Booklist

“The books have been made into a BBC/PBS series called 'Grantchester,' and I am happy to say that they have not suffered from TV fame—if anything, they are getting better.” —Seattle Times

“Each story is a different case, but the domestic events and small homey crises go on throughout, bringing a welcome and comforting continuity to the whole book. Thoroughly enjoyable, an updated cozy village with just a bit more sex and violence than we saw in Miss Marple's St. Mary Mead.” —The Historical Novels Society

“Sidney and the entire supporting cast, including a new curate with a fondness for cake, are all vividly portrayed, and comparisons to G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown books are amply justified.” —starred review, Publishers Weekly

“We should welcome him to the ranks of classic detectives.” —The Daily Mail

“Runcie is emerging as Grantchester's answer to Alexander McCall Smith . . . The book brings a dollop of Midsomer Murders to the Church of England, together with a literate charm of its own: civilized entertainment, with dog-collars.” —Spectator

“Chambers turns out to be a winning clergyman-sleuth, and Runcie's literary authority is repeatedly demonstrated in the construction of his elegant tales . . . there is no denying the winning charm of these artfully fashioned mysteries.” —Barry Forshaw, The Independent

“The clerical milieu is well rendered as an affectionate eye is cast over post-war England—a perfect accompaniment to a sunny afternoon, a hammock and a glass of Pimm's.” —The Guardian

“The Sidney Chambers series may be comforting, but it's not simple. Runcie meant these novels to be a commentary on life in post-World War II Britain, and so they are. But the themes of good and evil, temptation and sacrifice, remain as fresh as today's news feed.” —Newsday

“For many, a perfect place to escape to is a British village of a certain era. Look no farther than the Grantchester mystery series (Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death, " " " the Perils of the Night, " " " the Problem of Evil and 2015's Sidney Chambers and the Forgiveness of Sins), published by Bloomsbury USA. James Runcie's atmospheric books . . . are delightful, with just enough darkness to give them a bite.” —Shelf Awareness

From the Publisher

2015-03-05
Sidney Chambers is back for a fourth round of crimes to solve when his religious duties allow him time—or is it the other way around? Canon Chambers, the vicar of the church in Grantchester, is curiously ambivalent for a man of faith. He tries to be a conscientious cleric, husband, and father, but in these six loosely connected stories, a good mystery can always send him haring across the countryside, to the exasperation of his wife, Hildegard. In "The Forgiveness of Sins," the principal violinist of a string quartet walks into the church after his wife's death by stabbing and claims sanctuary, an ancient law that no longer applies in 1964. In "Nothing to Worry About," Sidney's concern about an unhappy wife teaches him a painful lesson about the unintended consequences of intervention. Death by falling piano is the subject of "Fugue," and in "A Following," Sidney, newly elevated to Archdeacon of Ely, helps his former flame Amanda Kendall discover who's sending the letters threatening to kill her if she goes ahead with marriage plans. In "Prize Day," Sidney, agreeing to umpire a cricket match at a boys' school, is on hand to witness a deadly explosion, and "Florence" casts him as suspect rather than detective. Throughout his adventures, Sidney is sustained by the help and blunt advice of his friend Inspector Geordie Keating and the love of his much-suffering Hildegard. However far he strays from his avowed intent, he always returns to preach with humility and compassion about what his sideline as a detective has taught him. Runcie (Sidney Chambers and the Problem of Evil, 2014, etc.) gives his genial hero just enough love of a good pint, a pretty woman, and a complex puzzle to save him from blandness or buffoonery in these gently humorous and sometimes-poignant stories.

Kirkus Reviews