SINS OF THE FATHERS
An Anthology of Clerical Crime
edited by Mark Bryant
Clerical crime, not clerical detection—so don't expect to see Father Dowling or Blackie Ryan. (Father Brown squeezes in via a story featuring a killer curate.) The tone of the 14 stories ranges from troubled mysticism (Chekhov) to snippy satire (Saki), with Maupassant and Sherwood Anderson stoking the fires of lust and M.R. James and Arthur Gray probing Latin manuscripts for clues to clerical treasures. And, as this list of authors suggests, these reprints are gleaned not only from the old (Agatha Christie, R.H. Barham, J.S. Fletcher, E.F. Benson, John Galsworthy) but from the ancient (Conan Doyle, Sheridan Le Fanu). The mild principal novelty of most entries seems to be priestly involvement in crime. Just the gift for parish priests who find Andrew Greeley a little too threatening.