The Reaper - Hardcover

Lovesey, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1569472270 ISBN 13: 9781569472279

Publisher: Soho Press, 2001

Synopsis

A dark, delicious tale of a popular village cleric who has no conscience.

About this title

About the Author

Peter Lovesey is the author of twenty-six highly praised mystery novels and has been awarded the CWA Gold and Silver Daggers and the Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement, as well as many US honors.

Reviews

Wielding the Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement he recently won from the British Crime Writers, Lovesey slashes his way through the overgrown shrubbery of the rural British cozy. The result is an extremely clever, exquisitely written story of a murderous rector who manages to earn a great deal of our sympathy while dramatically whittling down his flock in the Wiltshire village of Foxford. "If you knew Marcus Glastonbury, you would not expect him to appreciate anything out of the ordinary," Lovesey tells us right away about the local bishop, who comes to chastise the handsome young rector for cooking the books at his last parish. And indeed Bishop Glastonbury is no match for the Reverend Otis Joy a wickedly intelligent serial killer (the bishop becomes his second victim, framed to look like a suicide and a sex pervert) who also happens to be a crackerjack priest. That's why the good folk of Foxford especially the women find it hard to swallow the gossip about Reverend Joy that gradually builds up like a winter ground fog. One local housewife, Rachel Jansen, who surprises the rector naked under an apron while he cleans up after killing the bishop, becomes such a strong supporter that she risks losing not only her life but also her immortal soul. Lovesey deftly plants deceptive clues and raises false hopes about Reverend Joy's fate, all the while painting a picture of a town and a church congregation so real that they leap off the page. (Apr. 1)Forecast: Soho is reprinting another one of Lovesey's best novels 1978's Rough Cider in paperback to help celebrate his Diamond Dagger, and he will be the guest of honor at this year's Bouchercon in Washington, D.C. Last year's well-received The Vault is also still available, helping to give this deserving author a lot of visibility.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Otis Joy, rector of Foxford, is a gifted preacher, an able parish politician, and a deft fund-raiser. So deft is he that he manages, with the help of carefully picked, somewhat dense parish treasurers, to embezzle funds from every post he holds. When the bishop confronts him with the evidence, Rector Joy dispatches him with a blow to the head from a St. Paul's Cathedral snow globe. The reader watches in horrified, sometimes admiring fascination, as the rector continues to wow them in the pews, soothe suspicions, seduce his next pick for treasurer, while pursuing, on days off and at odd moments when parishioners thwart his plans, his avocation as serial killer. Greatly acclaimed suspense master Lovesey (his latest accolade is the Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement) is brilliant at constructing a knife's-edge suspense plot and at involving us, against our will and better judgment, with the charming, evil rector. Connie Fletcher
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Edition details

• Publisher: Soho Press
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1569472270
• ISBN 13: 9781569472279
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 295