Books of the year
From our UK edition
A.N.Wilson Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death by James Runcie (Bloomsbury, £14.99). At last, an Anglican Father Brown. Runcie has sensibly set his detective stories in the 1950s, before the boring era when DNA and science spoilt the poetry of crime investigation. Canon Chambers, a self-effacing, clever clergyman with a taste for pubs and shove-halfpenny, and an agonised capacity to fall in love with women, is surely a bit as Archbishop Runcie must have been when he came out of the Guards and took orders? Each tale is beautifully crafted and surprising. I hope for many more volumes.
