Murder before Evensong

by Ben Soton

Murder Before Evensong by the Reverend Richard Coles, Weidenfeld & Nicholson London 2022, Hardback: 368pp; rrp £16.99.

The Reverend Richard Coles is the archetypal rock star vicar. In the 1980s he was a member of the band The Communards; today he hosts Radio Four’s Saturday Live and has appeared on Strictly, QI and in an episode of Holby City where he played himself. He has now taken up crime fiction with his first novel Murder Before Evensong published this year.
    What could be described as Father Brown set in the 1980s; an era when the internet was in its infancy and computers and mobile phones were rare. The hero is clerical sleuth Canon Daniel Clement whose crime-solving skills emanate from his interpretation of Greek Biblical text. If you are looking for a rough and ready hard drinking Gene Hunt type you will be disappointed. Instead, you have an OCD vicar who lives with his mother and two sausage dogs.
    The book his as much a window into 1980s village life as a crime adventure. Set in the fictional Champton, somewhere in the English Midlands; dominated by both the Church and its patrons the aristocratic De Flores family. Champton is still living in the shadow of the Second World War; where it acted a base the US Air Force and a Free French hospital. The book begins with what seems a silly row about the installation of a toilet inside the church. I believe today all public buildings are required to contain such facilities. However, in a world dominated by ultra-conservative interest groups, namely the local Flower Guild such a moderate improvement creates not only opposition but opens up a whole can of worms.
    The 1980s, as were every decade in history, a time of change; for instance, there were changes in attitudes towards gays, an issue that arises in the novel. The decade coincided with the height of Coles’ music career and may well have been the period in his life when he came to terms with his own homosexuality. I speculate as whether the character of Cannon Clement, an unmarried man in his forties is in fact Coles’s alter ego. Is it just a coincidence that the author is also the owner a pair of sausage dogs? In other is Coles writing a novel with himself as the lead character. Why not?