cover image The Snares of Death

The Snares of Death

Kate Charles. Mysterious Press, $18.95 (362pp) ISBN 978-0-89296-498-7

American-born Charles reaches new heights of Anglophilia in the second adventure (after A Drink of Deadly Wine ) to team up London artist Lucy Kingsley and Norfolk solicitor David Middleton-Brown. Bob Dexter is a loutish evangelical clergyman soon to be installed as pastor of St. Mary the Virgin, a High Church parish in Norfolk. Insisting on being called ``Bob'' and often referring to himself in the third person, Dexter is set on removing all traces of ``idolatry'' and Papistry from his new church, causing much consternation among the parishioners. When he's found bludgeoned to death in the church, fingerprints point to a young Anglican priest who hires David to defend him. Lucy and David must sort through various Anglo-Catholic and evangelical clergy and laity, animal-rights activists and the victim's browbeaten family to find the killer, all the while trying to determine the future of their own relationship. Two additional deaths and the seduction of a young woman also occur--in keeping with the book's tone of high gentility, offstage--before David and Lucy determine who did what to whom and why. Charles entertains with well-drawn characters, a serviceable plot--though no real surprises--and a deftly explored High Church milieu. (Dec.)