Customer Reviews

Mrs Malory: Death of a Dean

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Hazel Holt writes confidently and spiritedly, and this outing is no exception. This time the plot allows her to indulge her fondness for Stratford-upon-Avon (elsewhere the series visits Oxford) and the concerns of a rural dweller shine through here and there, convincing us that this is an author with knowledge of her settings.

In this novel, Sheila Mallory investigates the sudden death of an unpleasant cleric that she has known since childhood. There are plenty of juicy suspects, and plenty of echoes of the novels of Barbara Pym (whose literary executor Ms. Holt was) in the details of rural and church life. Her busy, confiding tone embraces one, and one almost believes that Taviscombe exists.

Mrs. Mallory's relations with the police are perhaps the weak point of this series - even in the jovial West Country one finds it difficult to believe that professionals would let a late middle aged widow tell them what's what - but then detective fiction of this sort requires some suspension of belief.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this, and other books in this series, and I look forward to seeing many more.

Holt is one of the best mystery authors I have ever read and I have been around a long, long time. Mrs. Malory is a widow who lives in the village of Taviscombe in England. She has a son who is a lawyer. There seems

to be quite alot of murders happening in and around Taviscombe

(reminding one of "The Midsomer Murders" out on DVD. Mrs. Malory tends

to get involved in these murders. Her best friend Rosemary,s son in law

is a Detective in the local police department. In this book, The "Dean"

is a Bishop in the Episcopal Church. He is also a very evil man.

Mrs. Malory (Sheila) had known the Dean since he was a young lad.

His brother, David a TV actor has come on hard times and wants a loan

from the Dean who won't give it to him. Mrs. Malory thinks the world

of David and does everything she can to help him including when he

is charged with murder.

The Mrs. Malory books are ones you have to, if you can read it at one

sitting. You also wish you knew a Mrs. Malory. She is a jewel of a

person and a jewel of a detective.