Dark Provenance/a Mystery [Hardcover]

Michael David Anthony (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1995

A church official matches wits with a radical new Archdeacon bent on cost-cutting while coping with the mysterious death of a figure from his own past, a ""suicide"" that reveals a sixty-year-old secret of wartime intrigue. By the author of The Becket Factor.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The venerable walls of Canterbury Cathedral structure the offbeat plot, foreign intrigue, lively characters, surprising twists and ironic wit of Anthony's (The Becket Factor) rich, labyrinthine mystery. Richard Harrison, a former intelligence major trying to save his marriage to wise, wheelchair-bound Winnie, has retired to the "dull decencies" of diocesan life, entrusted with repairs. He has returned from a summer in Italy to find a tactless new archdeacon hell-bent on cutting costs and to learn that an old Jewish comrade from de-Nazification days in Berlin tried to visit him a month ago. This man later apparently plunged to his death from a train. Harrison then becomes the unwilling bearer of an eviction notice to the frail old rector of a small church, who is soon found dead in his car, apparently a carbon-monoxide suicide. How are the two deaths related? What, if anything, is the relevance of the recent fall of the Berlin Wall? What is the role of the porcelain figurine of a monkey violinist? From the start, with the bells of Great Dunstan proclaiming the hour, to the finish, as Harrison confronts a killer high in the scaffolding around towering Bell Harry, Anthony's novel offers full, lasting satisfactions.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; 1st U.S. ed edition (June 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312117671
• ISBN-13: 978-0312117672
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,478,186 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Diocesan politics and murder, August 5, 2008

By 

L. J. Roberts (Oakland, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dark Provenance/a Mystery (Hardcover)

First Sentence: Great Dunston struck the hour.

Captain Richard Harrison, an intelligence officer during WII, is Secretary of the Dilapidations Board for the Archdiocese of Canterbury. Returning, with his wife Winnie, from vacation, he is contacted by a distraught young woman whose father's body was found by a railway line and whose death has been labeled a suicide. She doesn't believe the death was suicide but does believe her father may have tried to contact Harrison and he realizes the man was someone he knew during the war.

Due to cost cutting measures, Harrison must inform retired pastor, Reverend Dove and his wife they must move out of a diocese rectory they had been told they could stay in the rest of their lives. Reverend dove is found in his car, an apparent suicide. The two suicides cause Harrison to question the facts and the links.

I so enjoyed the contrast of historical Canterbury and old rectories set in England during the early 1990s and Desert Shield. Harrison is a great character and very realistically drawn, including his marriage with Winnie, and that often clues come to him from comments by others rather than Harrison always finding the clues himself. The conflicts, large and small, internal and external to the character make him genuine.

Anthony was a descriptive writer which provided me a very strong sense of atmosphere and place. The plot is intriguing with a strong ending. I could never anticipate it I do wish we had more than three books from Mr. Anthony. At least, I've still one more yet to read and enjoy.