cover image Murder at the Rummage Sale

Murder at the Rummage Sale

Elizabeth Cunningham. Imagination Fury Arts, $24 (406p) ISBN 978-1-944190-00-2

The presidential race between Nixon and Kennedy in September 1960 is the backdrop for Cunningham’s complex whodunit set in an unnamed small town. Charlotte Crowley, the leader of the Episcopal Church of the Regeneration and organizer of the rummage sale, is found dead in the church basement under newly pressed coats. With the local authorities convinced that Charlotte’s death was accidental, it behooves four churchgoing sleuths to find her killer: alcoholic rector Gerald Bradley; Katherine, his Narnia-loving seven-year-old daughter; Anne, his dutiful wife; and spinster Lucy Way, a longtime nurse and cook with a mystical streak. Into the drama of the amateur investigation Cunningham (the Maeve Chronicles) deftly weaves in aspects of postwar life (many of the characters are still overcoming the trauma of WWII), theological stances including Anglo-Catholic mystic and Social Gospel breast-beater, and lush descriptions of food and nature. Fans of Anglican novelist Elizabeth Goudge will find a lot to like. (Aug.)