Words leave imprints in your mind like footprints in the sand...
1950s: A clergyman with a policeman for a good friend and the two of them make for an unlikely crime fighting duo. Sidney Chambers is a unconventional vicar and he has a way of getting to the bottom of things. Set in Grantchester, Cambridge, this is a lovely set of crime and mystery stories.
Good old fashioned crime solving set in Grantchester, Cambridge. Atmospheric and evocative of English village life in the 195os and beyond.
Sidney Chambers is a quiet and unassuming man. You might not give him a second look if you passed him in the street. He is a priest and gives the advice and support to his churchgoers as you might imagine. Oh but there is one difference and it’s quite a fun one –
Canon Sidney Chambers had never intended to become a detective. Indeed it came about quite by chance , after a funeral, when a handsome woman of indeterminate age voiced her suspicion that the recent death of a Cambridge suicide was not suicide, as had been widely reported, but murder.
It was a weekday morning in October 1953 and the pale rays of a low autumn sun were falling over the village of Grantchester…
A trail through history
Indeed the stories take us on a journey of over 30 years of British history, from the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 to the wedding of Charles and Diana in 1981, which makes for a fascinating and inspired realistic backdrop.
The setting, pictured on the cover is the novel illustrated – idyllic and peaceful – blue skies, fluffy clouds, a beautiful summer’s day, in the grounds of a beautiful church…but with a dark shadow encroaching overhead.
This collection of stories is the first book in the series, The Grantchester Mysteries – yet this is not just a collection of stories about a vicar solving cosy crimes – the stories and especially the inward thought processes of the vicar himself tell us more about life in a quaint English village during some unique moments in history and reveals a way of life that most of us have never experienced – yet as James Herriot showed us with his ‘animal tales’, the stories are so much more than they first appear.
A collection of six short stories about a vicar turned sleuth might be seen as too cosy and sedate for some, yet the booktrail believes the unique premise of the characters and the setting will work wonders for many. Crime and mystery does not always have to be grim and nasty – that’s not to say that all James Runcie’s stories are sedate. Far from it. It can also be about people and the way a small village interacts with outsiders and a priest thrown into some rather unique situations.
Susan @thebooktrailer
This book is good on many levels – good old crime and mystery short stories with the priest at the centre of it all – makes you think Morse, Midsummer Murders, Columbo all wrapped up in a quaint little village. Don’t dismiss this as ‘ just’ cosy crime – for it has many layers not to mention you can basically travel through time with the vicar and witness events of British history as the backdrop from 1953 and the Queen’s Coronation to the wedding of Charles and Di in 1981.
If you can’t read on location in Cambridge, you might want to get yourself a cigar, sit by a roaring fire with a rug on your knees and a dog at your feet and just enjoy.
Twitter: @james_runcie
Facebook: /grantchestermysteries
Web: jamesruncie.com
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