Customer Reviews

The Office of the Dead (Roth Trilogy)

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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

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.

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.

The last of the Roth Trilogy, many things come together while some are still left a bit open ended. Each book kept my attention the entire time and I found it difficult to put them down. Definitely A+++, highly recommended. I just purchased two more books by Andrew Taylor and I cannot wait to receive them!