Alison Joseph at Tangled Web UK

Page Updated: 09/07/2007

Alison Joseph

Shadow of Death

The Night Watch

The Dying Light

A Dark And Sinful Death

The Quick and the Dead

A Profile of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

About the Author (Photo (c) Tim Boon)

Bibliography

Hardback
Allison & Busby (2007)

Shadow of Death
The past weighs heavy upon me, yet have I breathed no word of this to a soul.
Agnes is up to her neck in books. Having been asked to help sort out the library of the nearly defunct Order in Bermondsey before the building is sold, she is trawling through piles of tatty Victoriana and mawkish lives of the saints. However, the seventeenthcentury Hawker archive, a collection of beautifully preserved books on spells and magic as well as hand-written journals, does catch her eye. These tell the story of Alice, her husband Nicolas and their son who died in infancy. Alice did not long survive him.
Alice’s story seems to haunt the present. The building, now an NHS day centre for the mentally ill, is the backdrop for a modern mother’s fears for the safety of herself and her child. Agnes is increasingly drawn into the predicament of Tina-Marie and her daughter Leila as well as Alice’s narrative. The line between past and present grows hazy as Tina-Marie, like Alice before her, falls prey to the men in her life and depression.
When unexplained and horrible things start happening, culminating in Tina-Marie’s murder, Agnes becomes convinced that buyers are after something more than the obvious in the Hawker archives. She realises she must hurry to protect Leila and lay some ghosts to rest.
‘One helluva nun’ Hampstead and Highgate Express
‘Agnes is fascinating by the contrariness of her character; on the verge of vows of poverty she is pleased that she has crab pate in the fridge for supper… Excellent, intriguing series’ Mystery Woman
‘A complex and intriguing novel, with a refreshing heroine… who challenges herself, her family, her relationship with her family, friends and God. A thoroughly enjoyable read’ Crime Time

First British Edition Headline (2000)

The Night Watch
See Review by Cath Staincliffe - Author of the highly acclaimed Sal Kilkenny Mysteries set on the Mean Streets of Manchester
See Review by J.O.
The sixth crime novel featuring Sister Agnes Bourdillon
As a nun who has not yet committed to her final vows, Sister Agnes Bourdillon feels ill-qualified to oversee two novices at her order's London base, their apparent certainty about their vocation a challenge to Agnes's daily questioning of her chosen direction.
Meanwhile events are conspiring to draw her attention away from the young women.
Through her close friend, Father Julius, Agnes has met three brothers, Patrick, Matthias and Tad. When Matthias is killed while out riding, it looks like an accident; but as Tad points out, what are the odds of being killed by a stray golfball? Especially when another rider had survived a similar incident only days before. Slowly Agnes pieces together connections between the victims and local landowners, but until she is certain a crime has been committed, how can she even hazard a guess at who is behind it? If only she could talk matters through with Father Julius, but he has turned away from Agnes for the first time since she has known him.
Another death is enough to convince Agnes that a murderer is at work, and she finds that faith is no shield against plain cold fear. With her two novices and Father Julius now all in crisis, Agnes has to delve deep into her reserves of ingenuity and strength to establish not only the truth about the murders but also her own future path.
Praise for Alison Joseph
'Those who expect Sister Agnes to be a cloistered violet are in for a stimulating surprise… She is not Miss Marple with a wimple but a suffering, struggling human being whose brilliance in detection is matched by her compassion' Sister Wendy Beckett
'Superior murder mystery… a rich, multi-layered tale that's more than just a crime novel' Belfast Telegraph
'A complex and intriguing novel, with a refreshing heroine… who challenges herself, her faith, her relationship with her family, friends and God. A thoroughly enjoyable read' Crime Time
'Joseph writes with such pointed authority' Kirkus

Paperback - Headline (1999)

First British Edition Headline (1999)

The Dying Light
Young, independent and sharply aware of he spiritual weaknesses, Sister Agnes Bourdillon is not the kind of nun who needs a habit and a wimple to express her religious commitment. But her strength is certainly tested by her secondment to Silworth, a women's prison in Southwark. She does, however, find the work compelling, as she attempts to negotiate the complex network of bullies and victims, loyalties and hatreds, prisoners and jailers, searching to understand the often violent histories that lie behind each woman. For Agnes, herself scarred by her past, knows only too well how such legacies can contort the present.
Then the father of Cally Fisher, one of the prison's most turbulent inmates, is shot dead in a nearby flat, the chief suspect Cally's boyfriend. And, reminded all too forcefully of how she is losing her own mother, who is rapidly retreating from reality in a nursing home in France, Agnes finds that she too has become entangled in a dark world that stretches further than the prison walls…
Praised by Val McDermid as 'a fascinating and complicated woman who inevitably looks at the world from an oblique angle', Agnes Bourdillon is one of contemporary crime fiction's most unusual and arresting heroines, her creator Alison Joseph an impressively stylish and thoughtful writer with a sharply perceptive vision of late twentieth-century civilization and its discontents.

Hardback
Headline (1997)

Paperback - Headline (1998)

A Dark And Sinful Death
See Review by Catherine Laws
A Sister Agnes Mystery
Agnes Bourdillon isn't the kind of woman you expect to be a nun. She's attractive stylish, not naturally saintly. Sent by her order to their Yorkshire boarding school, she complies reluctantly, finding the tinkling good manners of the poised convent girls almost unbearable, for they remind her of her own privileged and lonely childhood. Gradually she warms to some, particularly the rebels, though the teachers, including the self effacing art mistress Joanna Baines, are harder to fathom.
Shortly after Agnes encountered her on a walk on the moors, together, Agnes thinks, with a man, Joanna disappears. Then the local newspaper reports the horrifying murder of a gardener who works for Allbrights, one of the few working mills in the area, owned by a Baines who denies he even. knows the missing Joanna. Joanna reappears days later, pale and thin, but then another body, similarly mutilated, is found, again linked to Allbrights. How long, Agnes wonders, can Joanna keep her silence?
Praise for Alison Joseph's previous Sister Agnes novels:
'Stylish assurance… instilled with an urgent sense of the complexities of urban existence' Birmingham Post
'A refreshingly different central character' Bolton Evening News
'An enjoyable read' Sheffield Telegraph
'Satisfyingly believable' Glasgow Herald

Hardback
Null ()

The Quick and the Dead
Working in a London hostel for the homeless, Sister Agnes had, for a while, felt an unaccustomed contentment with her faith, and the way her life has arranged itself around it. But when Sam, a sixteen-year-old runaway, whose place in the hostel Agnes had fought for, is forced to return to her broken and abusive family and then goes missing, Agnes feels all her hard-won equilibrium vanish. Furious with the authorities, with her superior within the Church, Father Julius, and most of all with herself, she feels she must do what she can to track the girl down and pull her back from the brink of potential self-destruction. Sam's friends recall her saying she planned to join anti-road protesters who have constructed a treetop encampment at the edge of Epping Forest. Sure enough Agnes finds Sam there, amidst the beggars, travellers and anarchists, revelling in their fireside talk of apocalypse though contemplating returning to live with the father who deserted her sixteen years earlier and who, suspiciously to Agnes's mind, has suddenly reappeared full of paternal love and free-flowing cash. For the moment, however, Sam seems secure at the camp, a magic fortress in the sky, even if its tents and tree houses can only provide a temporary bulwark against destruction. But even that safety is illusory. Only hours after Agnes's arrival a body is found. Of a brutally murdered young girl…
Praise for Alison Joseph's previous Sister Agnes novels:
'One helluva nun' Hampstead and Highgate Express
'Nice one that doesn't start with a bang and end with a whimper' Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Journal

About The Author
Alison Joseph was born in North London and educated at Leeds University. After graduating she worked as a presenter on a local radio station then, moving back to London, for Channel 4. She later became a partner in an independent production company and one of its commissions was a series about women and religion. She has since worked as a reader for BBC Radio Drama. Alison, who now has three children, lives in London.

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Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.

Shadow of Death (Allison & Busby, 2007)

The Night Watch (Headline, 2000) Headline Pbk Oct 00

The Dying Light (Headline, 1999) Headline Pbk Dec 99 (Sister Agnes Bourdillon)

A Dark And Sinful Death (Headline, 1997) Headline Aug 97 Headline Pbk 1998 (Sister Agnes Bourdillon)

The Quick and the Dead (Headline, 1996) (Sister Agnes Bourdillon)

Sacred Hearts (Headline) (Sister Agnes Bourdillon)

The Hour of Our Death (Headline) (Sister Agnes Bourdillon)