Wicked Autumn by G.M. Malliet

Reviewed by Jeanne

The village of Nether Monkslip has been all atwitter after the arrival of their new vicar, Max Tudor.  Not only is he good looking and quite eligible, it’s rumored that he has a past that involved MI5.  However, the main concern at the moment is the Harvest Fayre, a major fund raiser sponsored by the church’s Women’s Institute and is being run with an iron hand by Wanda Batton-Smythe.  Wanda is a take-charge person who believes that nothing can be accomplished without her—not that she does any of the actual work.  She delegates all the tasks and then of course finds the work not up to standard.

Obnoxious as she is, it still comes as a bit of a surprise when her body is found in the Village Hall under suspicious circumstances. Max finds himself having to deal with a situation of the sort he thought he’d left far behind.
This is another of those books that seemed to appear out of nowhere and swoop up accolades and bouquets.  It was described as a delightful British cozy; while I like that genre, it didn’t prompt me to rush right out and read it.  I think it just sounded a little too cozy somehow. Really, a vicar who is a former MI5 agent?

Fortunately, I did pick up the book and start to read.  Malliet had me from the first page, when Wanda takes charge of the Women’s Institute meeting and her captive audience members are all wishing themselves elsewhere, sitting on something other than the orange plastic chairs that “might have been rejects from an ergonomics study.”  The neat turns of phrase continued, much to the consternation of friends who had to listen to me read them aloud.  (I especially liked the one in which a woman is offered a book of dubious literary value and regards it as if she were “Queen Victoria being handed a pamphlet on early contraceptive techniques.”) While the characters are somewhat eccentric, they aren’t totally over the top.  I also had visions of the vicar being a James Bond sort, too smooth and too sophisticated for the setting.  Instead the characterizations are all a bit more nuanced than that, making the characters more believable without losing the sense of slight exaggeration and fun. Max, it turns out, was indeed an agent, one who walked away from that life and toward something in which he could believe.  Max is religious but doesn’t feel he has all the answers for either his congregation or himself; nor is he particularly denominational, despite being an Anglican priest.  It was a choice inspired by a relative who was a nun, not from any specific call.

There are several other memorable villagers, including Awena Owen who runs the local New Age shop and who thinks Max is far too other-worldly and not nearly practical enough; Miss Agnes Pitchford, the retired school teacher who knows everybody’s business; and Major Batton-Smythe, Wanda’s somewhat bewildered and blustery husband.

The bottom line is that I enjoyed this book very much, and more for the author’s way with a line than the mystery.  Not that the mystery was bad, mind you; but it’s easier to find a decently plotted mystery than it is to find one that’s so entertaining.  There’s a second book in the series, Fatal Winter, out and I have it on reserve.  I don’t think it can possibly be as much fun to read, but I’m certainly willing to be proven wrong.