The Judgement of Strangers [Paperback]

Andrew Taylor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2003

Taylor probes the secret history of murder, delving deep into the past to find the origins of a serial killer in his second novel of the Roth Trilogy.  Here is the story of David Byfield, a widowed parish priest with a dark past and a darker future.

The suburban town of Roth is haunted by its past, and struggling to break free. But by initiating a series of gruesome murders and mutilations, echoing crimes committed years before, someone in the village is trying to assure history’s tight grip over the present. The community has no shortage of suspects, from the village vicar in the throes of a midlife crisis to the unusual brother and sister newly relocated to the town of Roth. Audrey Oliphant, churchwarden, spinster and secret admirer of the vicar, fancies herself as Miss Marple, and when the corpse of her cat, Lord Peter, is found nailed to the church door, she decides to investigate. By the end of her investigation, two people are dead, one is in jail, and a fourth is insane. 

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

There's a wonderfully sly, almost mocking overtone to this middle part of a mystery trilogy by British master Andrew Taylor. As the narrator--a pompous, self-pitying clergyman named David Byfield--says about a dinner engagement: "As a consequence of my accepting their invitation, two people died, a third went to prison, and a fourth was admitted to a hospital for the insane." No beating about the bush there, or anywhere else in this story set in 1970 (25 years before the events of The Four Last Things, the first book in Taylor's trilogy about a fictional London suburb called Roth). The Judgement of Strangers helps explain what happens in the first book, but also stands on its own as a mordant mystery about sexual repression.

Byfield, a handsome widower with a psychologically fragile teenaged daughter, stirs up trouble with his attention to several women, all of whom pay a much higher price than he does. By making Byfield such a dolt, Taylor lets us sympathize with even the most odious of his conquests--Audrey, the obsessed local historian and operator of the world's nastiest teashop. "I watched the excitement draining from Audrey's face like water from a bath," Byfield tells us. "I felt ashamed of myself and also irritated with her. Why did she insist on calling Roth a village? It was a suburb of London, similar in all essentials to a dozen others. Most of its inhabitants had their real lives elsewhere. In Roth they merely serviced their bodily needs, watched television and on Sundays played golf or cleaned their Ford Cortinas." Book three promises to go back even further in time and tell us how Byfield's first wife died. --Dick Adler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

This second book in the planned Roth Trilogy looks back a generation at some of the origins of characters and action in the first book, The Four Last Things (1997). Taylor builds a powerful narrative as his struggling characters face an array of temptations that the reader knows early on will overwhelm them. Set in 1970 in the village of Roth, near London, the tale is narrated by David Byfield, a Church of England minister. The near bucolic setting hides a raft of jealousies and passions that quietly build and seethe until the inevitable crest. As David, his new wife, Vanessa, his daughter Rosemary, home for school holiday, and his godson Michael try to adapt to living with one another, other forces obtrude. But David's concern with the church fete stirs up trouble, as does Vanessa's research into the life of the mad poet-priest, Francis Youlgreave, buried in the parish church, and Rosemary's infatuation with the handsome young man who has just moved into Roth Park, the village's big manor house. The clincher is David's growing attraction to the young man's ethereal older sister. Although Taylor has willingly sacrificed some suspense by adopting this reverse chronology, he is sufficiently skillful to keep the reader on edge all the way to the stunning climax.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; 1st edition (May 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312287305
• ISBN-13: 978-0312287306
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,040,788 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Where's Miss Marple when you need her?, May 18, 2007

By 

Neal J. Pollock (VA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Judgement of Strangers (Roth Trilogy/Andrew Taylor, Bk 2) (Hardcover)

This is a relatively slow-moving "mystery" in which the puzzling murder of a cat comprises the "mystery" for the vast bulk of the book. However, the end of the book is full of mayhem, murder, & mystery--a great surprise to me. Though referred to by the author as the 2nd book in the Roth trilogy, a prequel to the 1st book, it doesn't explain very much IMHO. While there are numerous characters who also appear in the 1st book (e.g. Michael Appleyard), they could have been anyone--there's very little continuity. The main character in book 2, David Byfield, is a minor player in book 1, though some of the events of book 2 no doubt contributed to his personality (or lack thereof) in book 1. However, there ARE some striking similarities between the two books such as the author's treatment of Anglican clerics (not very gently & not very kindly); there is a dearth of spirituality in both books. I suspect that the greater value of these works may lie in the trilogy as a whole vs. the individual books--literary synergy. Still, this one is an easy read (though perhaps a bit depressing) & certainly has a shocking ending. The author also provides some interesting insights into human nature: p. 126: "It is chillingly easy to repeat our mistakes.
p. 285: There comes a point when punishing yourself becomes a purely self-indulgent exercise.
p. 286: Very good people can be as ruthless as very bad people" & provides references & a parallel with Agatha Christie & her Miss Marple.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Desires and decisions, December 21, 2009

By 

Linda Pagliuco "katknit" (CT, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Judgement of Strangers (Paperback)

Readers of The Four Last Things, the first book in Andrew Taylor's Roth Trilogy, know how Rosemary Byfield turned out, but to know why, it's necessary to delve into the prequel, The Judgement of Strangers. The Reverend David Byfield is a bit player in TFLT, but in Strangers, he takes center stage. Byfield is a priest who's skating on thin ice. He's been celibate for ten years, since his wife died, but by now he's almost desperate for sex. His judgement is badly impaired by his desires, and Rosemary, his teenaged daughter, is badly in need of a level of attention and guidance that her father is not prepared to provide. David has retreated to a country parish after committing an undisclosed trangression while teaching in London. Not all of his current parishioners are, shall we say, in their right minds, and matters slowly but surely spin out of control.

Author Taylor is a master at character development, his plots evolving from the strengths and weaknesses of his protagonists. His characters are people we've all met before, incorporating facets of our own personalities, making it easy to empathize with their choices and decisions. Readers who enjoy getting lost simple yet enthralling plots are sure to enjoy this trilogy.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific read, October 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Judgement of Strangers (Roth Trilogy/Andrew Taylor, Bk 2) (Hardcover)

In the 1970 London suburb of Roth, David Byfield, a widowed minister with a daughter (Rosemary), has just married Vanessa. The occupants (including his godson) of the Byfield home, which happens to be the village vicarage, struggle to adjust to the idiosyncrasies of one another. However, the townsfolk are frightened over a series of mutilation murders, including the killing of a cat, Lord Peter.

The Byfields try to pretend that life goes on in spite of the recent events. David works on an upcoming church event. Vanessa researches the dead poet Father Francis Youlgreave, who once stirred up local society. Rosemary seems attracted to a newcomer. However, another resident Audrey Oliphant begins to investigate who had killed her feline.

The second novel in the Roth trilogy is a clever tale that actually is the prequel to events of the first book (see THE FOUR LAST THINGS) as it provides background information to the previous novel. In the hands of a lesser writer, this approach would be a disastrous failure. However, the dexterous Andrew Taylor not only makes it work, he effortlessly provides his readers with loads of suspense and fabulous characters that leave the audience shocked by the sheer brilliance. One does not need to have read the first story to fully gain pleasure from THE JUDGEMENT OF STRANGERS, but this reviewer recommends fans of English cozies to peruse both novels for double the enjoyment.

Harriet Klausner