Foolish Ways by
D.M. Greenwood
pbk out October 99
(Headline)
at £5.99
Archdeacon Richard Treadwell arrives at Bolly's Jolly Holiday Home one rain swept November evening to find his entrance barred by a slightly-built youth with spiky red hair, rings in his ears and a plastic cord round his neck reading "Circle Security." It does not augur well for the conference of diocesan workers, clerical and lay, on the subject of the "Millennial Message" which the Archdeacon has reluctantly agreed to attend. The accommodation in draughty, unheated chalets is bleak and the patience of those attending is severely tested. They would all rather be elsewhere and the organiser, Harold Worsted, grandly called the Communications Chaplain, has a miserable weekend. It is compounded by the discovery of the body of a young priest which has been bundled into a laundrette washing machine. Who can have killed such a well-meaning and blameless young man - and why? The police are quickly called in and the church's own amateur sleuth, deacon Theodora Braithwaite, is already there on site and willing and able to help them in their inquiry. They uncover a ring involving drugs and illegal immigrants.
The opening of the book is promising. The dreary holiday camp and the stormy background is convincingly evoked. The reader can almost feel the wind and the rain and the cold. · The Archdeacon's first sight of his chalet is daunting: "it was the sort of place where in his youth they had stowed tennis nets and old deckchairs." But the rest of the book is disappointing. There are far too many characters and the author switches from one point of view to another without any sustained focus of interest. Theodora has her moments, but not nearly enough. Even when she finds herself in a tight corner we are never entirely sure what will happen next because the author switches to another character. And the detectives - we only see two - Superintendent Spruce and DI Tilby - are rather colourless. A further disappointment is the Dickensian naming of characters: Russell Peach, Daniel Ripe, Canon Oldsalmon, Harold Worsted, and so on. But the portrayal of ecclesiastical life is very effective, as one would expect from an author who has been an ecclesiastical civil servant for fifteen years.
Foolish Ways by
D.M. Greenwood