The Office of the Dead (Roth Trilogy) [Hardcover]

Andrew Taylor (Author)

Book Description

Series: Roth Trilogy | Publication Date: August 2000

Living in the British city of Rosington of the 1950's, Wendy finds herself penniless, jobless and on the brink of divorce. Desperate for advice, she seeks solace in her oldest friend, Janet Byfield. The wife of an ambitious young clergyman, her friend seems to have everything Wendy lacks: a loving, new family and a gorgeous manor.

But perfection has always loomed too close to tragedy. Gradually the Byfields' idyll sours-old sins come to haunt the present and breed new ones in their place. A shadow of death seeps through the manor, and with it comes a mystery stretching back to the turn-of-the-century church and an opium-addicted poet-priest, then even further back in time, to a woman burned at the stake in the fifteenth century.

Only Wendy, as an outsider, can glimpse the truth. But can she grasp its macabre and twisted logic in time to prevent imminent tragedy?

Office of the Dead is the final volume of a trilogy tracing the psychological development of a female serial killer.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Maiden ladies who would make Miss Marple smile and villains as vile as Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter populate this witty, urbane but dark third volume in Taylor's Roth Trilogy (The Four Last Things and The Judgement of Strangers). Was Isabella of Roth really incinerated by evil forces centuries ago? Can Wendy and Henry Appleyard prevent a reprise of her murder? These questions underlie Taylor's 20th novel and demonstrate why he's earned a Creasy Award. Wendy flees 1950s London to escape her philandering husband, Henry, and takes refuge with chum Janet Blyfield in the seminary town of Rosington. She begins work as the cathedral library cataloguer and stumbles on an ancient mystery surrounding Victorian poet-priest Francis Youlgreave. Eventually, a reformed Henry, risking everything to get Wendy back, joins in the sleuthing. They research vicious acts of vandalism and murderApossibly perpetrated by the unholy man of God, Youlgreave. The plot expands with Wendy's secret attraction to Janet's clergyman spouse, David, and the arrival of Janet's demented father, John Treevor. Soon, animal carcasses and human corpses litter the Dark Hostelry, the Blyfields' moldering parsonage. Wendy, impelled by love for her friends, dodges personal danger to solve the wicked riddle. A melancholy denouement turns the case topsy-turvy. While the books of the Roth Trilogy may be read independently, for maximum enjoyment they ought to be read in sequence.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The final book in the "Roth" trilogy (e.g., The Four Last Things) takes place in the 1950s, when narrator Wendy Appleyard temporarily lives with the Rev. David and Janet Byfield in the English cathedral town of Rosington after her separation from Henry. The ancient house they inhabit, where Janet's dementia-ridden father and precocious daughter also live, seems to embody the psychological turmoil and murder that occur following Wendy's disturbing discovery about a mad, turn-of-the-century priest. Taylor's potent mixture of place, character, and action provides not only an excellent finish to his trilogy but also a fine stand-alone read. An essential acquisition.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st U.S. ed edition (August 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312203489
• ISBN-13: 978-0312203481
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,184,260 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing work, July 28, 2000

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Office of the Dead (Roth Trilogy) (Hardcover)

In 1958, Wendy Appleyard feels like life is over for her at the ripe old age of twenty-six. She is broke with no job yet is thinking of divorcing Henry, her husband of five years after seeing him humping a wealthy widow. Desperate, Wendy turns to her long-time friend, Janet Byfield for solace and a bit of security as she tries to turn her life around.

From Wendy's perspective, Janet lives the perfect life in Rosington with her happy marriage to devastatingly handsome clergyman David and their precious daughter Rosie. However, perfection is in the eyes of the beholder. Instead, former transgressions surface that lead to new misdeeds. Death has arrived in this small cathedral city and only Wendy, not being part of the community, begins to see the links to the late 1890s and a fifteenth century witch burning. However, will she fully understand what is happening in time to stop a future calamity?

THE OFFICE OF THE DEAD, the third tale in Andrew Taylor's chilling Roth Trilogy (see the exciting THE FOUR LAST THINGS and THE JUDGEMENT OF STRANGERS) is an enjoyable village mystery. The story line centers on how the past, even the distant centuries, retain a grip on the present and future. The characters seem real and the mysteries are exhilarating. However, it is Mr. Taylor's ability to use beautiful prose to invoke imagery that entices the audience into thinking about their own links to the past that makes him so good and this trilogy worth reading.

Harriet Klausner

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The 1st is last & the last is 1st, May 21, 2007

By 

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

This review is from: The Office of the Dead (Roth Trilogy) (Hardcover)

This is the 3rd book of Andrew Taylor's self-described Roth trilogy. The books are rather loosely connected, though David Byfield does appear in all 3 volumes as do references to the deceased Canon Francis Youlgreave. The 3 are arranged in reverse chronological order (with decades between them) which does add a dash of the unusual to it, but I think I'd rather read them in chronological order (the 3rd read 1st, the 1st read 3rd). Otherwise, this final work loses much of its mystery. Indeed, the 1st two volumes are more horror/thriller than mystery IMHO. The 3rd work (this one) however, is a good mystery--I liked it best of the three. Interestingly, the 1st & 3rd volumes have female protagonists. This book (as opposed to the others) has many endearing characters such as Wendy Appleyard & her friend Janet Byfield. The ending is more subtle in this book & some of Wendy's conclusions are circumstantial & debatable IMHO. The killer is discernable if one has read the 2nd volume beforehand. Some of the strange elements of the prior two volumes are implied in the 3rd volume.

Throughout the trilogy, Taylor writes beautifully & includes pithy descriptions & observations such as:
p. 251: "His idea of a heart-to-heart chat is to ask you if it's stopped raining yet. [of David Byfield]
p. 275: He'd have tried to talk to a Trappist monk. [of Henry Appleyard]
p. 299: Time doesn't heal, it just gives you other things to think about. [by Wendy Appleyard]
p. 301: She could had blighted a field of potatoes just by looking at it." [of Granny Byfield]
I especially liked pp. 98-9: Canon Osbaston's humorous dinner party.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wings of angels, December 31, 2009

By 

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

This review is from: The Office of the Dead (Roth Trilogy) (Paperback)

The Office of the Dead is the third volume in Taylor's Roth Trilogy, in which his readers come to understand how a little girl evolved into a serial killer. Wendy Appleyard leaves her husband after discovering his infidelity, and, not knowing where to turn, takes refuge with her friend Janet Byfield, now married to a handsome, up and coming C of E clergyman. The Byfields are pleased to welcome Wendy, who can assist Janet in the running of her household, which encompasses their daughter Rosie and Janet's elderly, rather senile father, Mr. Treevor. Almost immediately, Wendy perceives that all is not well. Mr Treevor engages in some very inappropriate, unsettling behaviors, and five year old Rosie is aloof but precocious. The Reverend Byfield is more concerned with his career than his family, and Janet prefers to downplay the significance of the increasing strangeness that surrounds them.

This is a tautly structured novel which builds, with commendable subtlety, to its unsettling climax only a few pages from the end of the saga. The metaphors that recur throughout the series (the sound of wings, church and domestic architecture, poetry, and biblical quotes, to name a few) serve as omens of things to come, and motifs that seem puzzling in the first volume (The Four Last Things) become clear at last.