The Snares of Death

The new vicar for the traditionally Anglo-Catholic church of St. Mary the Virgin has charisma and renown, but Robert Dexter may be the wrong man-of-the-cloth for the job. A prominent Evangelical minister, he has an unshakable faith in his own righteousness and a talent for rubbing people the wrong way. When he begins selling off church pews and statues, dismantling shrines and "modernizing" the altar, he has some of St. Mary's parishioners mad enough to kill. Within days of his arrival the Reverend Dexter also arouses the ire of local animal rights activists and bangs heads with one of his Evangelical colleagues. And beneath the surface of his seemingly tranquil home life, his long-suffering wife, Elayne, and beautiful daughter, Becca, are harboring secrets that Dexter does not suspect - until the day he is murdered. It's a murder with any number of possible suspects. David Middleton-Brown is sure of one thing: the devout young man arrested by the police is innocent. Unfortunately the circumstantial evidence looks damning, and David, with Lucy assisting, is searching for clues to the real murderer in the hidden agendas and carefully concealed sins of clergy and congregation alike. As they follow a perilous path through affairs of religion and the heart, their sleuthing culminates at a controversial religious pilgrimage. There, where High Church pomp and ceremony disguise an undercurrent of danger, they might find their solution - and a killer who has decided a second victim must die.