A Demon Summer

August 25, 2014
Agatha-winner Malliet’s entertaining fourth Max Tudor cozy (after 2013’s Pagan Spring) finds the former MI5 spy turned Anglican priest working up the nerve to tell his bishop that he plans to marry Awena Owen, who holds decidedly untraditional religious views. But before Max and Awena can tie the knot, the bishop dispatches him to the nunnery of Monkbury Abbey, where the sisters produced a fruitcake that sickened the Earl of Lislelivet some months after he visited the abbey. The bishop, who’s worried that the poisoning wasn’t an accident, believes that Max is better suited than the police to gain the sisters’ confidence and learn the truth about the fruitcake. The community, Max learns, is divided between those who want the abbey to have more contact with the outside world and those who don’t. Meanwhile, he has a possibly related crime to solve. The ending with a traditional gathering of the suspects will please Golden Age fans. Agent: Vicky Bijur, Vicky Bijur Literary.

October 1, 2014

Max Tudor, vicar of Nether Monkslip and former MI5 agent, is drawn into the investigation of attempts to poison the 15th Earl of Lislelivet, Ralph Percevel. No one is really surprised since Lord Lislelivet enrages everyone, including his wife. But this poison was baked into a fruitcake made by the Handmaids of St. Lucy of Monkton Abbey. Max is sent by his bishop to investigate both the fruitcake and some missing money that was to be used to expand the Monkton Abbey Guesthouse. When a body is found in the cloister well, will Father Max be able to uncover the culprit in time for his handfasting (i.e., wedding) to the village's only neopagan? VERDICT The fourth fun entry (after Pagan Spring) in this charming English cozy series is delightful in tone. Think Agatha Christie meets Ian Fleming.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2014
Malliet's previous three novels starring spy-turned-vicar Max TudorWicked Autumn, A Fatal Winter, and Pagan Springhave all been shortlisted for the Agatha Award. Malliett incorporates a lot of cozy elements, including placing the action in a tiny village (Nether Monkslip) and a vicarage, but she upends the formula a bit by transforming the vicar from the usual bumbler we see in a lot of cozies into a very sexy former MI5 agent. Tudor began his tenure at the vicarage as the cynosure of all church ladies' eyes; now he's about to marry the neopagan woman carrying his child. In the latest, Malliet adds a gothic element by centering much of the action in an ancient abbey, run by an order of nuns who, apparently, have produced poisoned fruitcake. Then, an aristocratic body is found in the abbey's well. Tudor's taking up residence at the abbey's guesthouse (at the request of his bishop) seems a bit too much deus ex machina in terms of crime solving, but it does yield a lot of comedy regarding the other guests. Tudor makes a number of spot-on observations, including his comment that members of Alanon go through much more Kleenex than do members of AA.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)