This image is the cover for the book Murder in a Cathedral, Robert Amiss/Baroness Jack Troutbeck Mysteries

Murder in a Cathedral, Robert Amiss/Baroness Jack Troutbeck Mysteries

"This blithe series puts itself on the side of the angels by merrily, and staunchly, subverting every tenet of political correctness."—The Independent

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 camp 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 include a clerical corpse in the cathedral. Is it suicide? Or is it murder? And who is likely to be next?

Ruth Dudley Edwards

Ruth Dudley Edwards is a historian and journalist as well as a mystery writer. The targets of her satirical crime novels include the gentlemen's clubs, Cambridge University, the House of Lords, journalism and literary prizes. The British Crime Writers' Association short-listed Corridors of Death for the John Creasy Award for best first novel, and Clubbed to Death and Ten Lords A-Leaping for their Last Laugh Award. She won the CrimeFest Last Laugh Award for Murdering Americans in 2008 and in 2010 the CWA Non-fiction Gold Dagger for Aftermath: the Omagh bombings and the families' pursuit of justice. Her twelfth mystery, Killing the Emperors, is a black comedy about conceptual art.

Poisoned Pen Press