Book description
For many years Westonbury Cathedral has been dominated by a clique of
High Church gays, so when Norman Cooper, an austere, intolerant,
happy-clappy evangelist, is appointed dean, there is shock, outrage and
fear. David Elworthy, the gentle and politically innocent new bishop, is
distraught at the prospect of warfare between the factions; contentious
issues include the outrageous Lady chapel and the gay memorial under
construction in the deanery garden. Desperate for help, Elworthy cries
on the shoulder of his old friend, the redoubtable Baroness Troutbeck,
who forces her unofficial troubleshooter, Robert Amiss, to move into the
bishop's palace. Amiss, Troutbeck, and the cat Plutarch address
themselves in their various ways to the bishop's problems, which very
soon swell to include a clerical corpse in the cathedral. Is it suicide?
Or is it murder? And who is likely to be next? Dr Ruth Dudley Edwards
was born and brought up in Dublin, Ireland. Since she graduated she has
lived in England, where she has been a teacher, a Cambridge postgraduate
student, a marketing executive, a civil servant and, finally, a
freelance writer, journalist and broadcaster. An historian and
prize-winning biographer, her recent non-fiction includes the authorized
history of The Economist, a portrait of the British Foreign Office and a
book about the newspaper world of the mid-twentieth century. She uses
her knowledge of the British establishment in her satirical crime
novels: targets so far include the civil service, gentlemen's clubs,
Cambridge colleges, the House of Lords, the Church of England,
publishing, literary prizes and - always - political correctness. She
has three times been short-listed for awards from the Crime Writers'
Association. www. ruthdudleyedwards. com
