I
very much enjoyed this first of the Grantchester Mysteries about
Sidney Chambers. The series on PBS over the winter so charmed me into
checking out the book from the local library. If Sidney Chambers was
a real person I would have a crush on him. Tall, muscular,
brown-haired (red in the PBS TV series), sensitive, kind, thoughtful, and a dog lover, who wouldn't admire him?
Set
in the village of Grantchester, apparently not far from London, in
1953 Sidney is 32, unmarried, and the Vicar. His best friend is
Geordie the local police inspector. It does have a bit of the “Murder
She Wrote” feel except with no Angela Landsbury. There are quaint
and funny stories about the locals but each chapter has a major crime
to be solved. Sidney and Geordie team up because Sidney can snoop,
ask questions, and listen to gossip where legally the inspector
cannot. Sidney also has practical understanding of human nature which
helps his friend sort out the clues of each mystery.
Sidney's
life is complicated by his crotchety housekeeper Mrs. Maguire, his
apprentice Leonard Graham, and his dog Dickens. He also has a
complicated relationship with one young and beautiful socialite
Amanda Kendall and a love affair with a German widow Hildegard
Stauntan.
Bike-riding
Sidney helps Geordie with a suspicious suicide, a murder of a jazz
club owner's daughter, a jewelry heist during a dinner party, and a
really creepy incident with an art forger. Not without getting
himself into some hot water though! Social issues crop up like the
freedom of women and homosexuality too and it is interesting to me to
see those issues from the filter of the 1950s perspective.
Sidney
himself is a deep and interesting character. Having survived WW II he
is not unscathed himself and is very good at ferreting out the raw
feelings of people hidden beneath their carefully constructed shells.
I liked this book a lot and hope to read more of the series.
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