Hope, Faith, and a Corpse

Hope Taylor is ready to start her new life as the first female pastor of Faith Chapel Episcopal Church in Apple Springs. The northern California town's quaint cottages, bungalows, and shops promise a fresh start for the forty-two-year-old widow and Bogie, her scruffy black Labrador. But where is Father Christopher? The kindly old rector who hired Pastor Hope was supposed to meet her upon her arrival, but he's nowhere to be seen. Hope's faith springs eternal, so she explores the little white church hoping to find Father Christopher. But when she enters the columbarium, she instead finds church elder Stanley King—his skull crushed by a fallen burial urn.Hope had made Stanley's acquaintance before and had struggled to take a charitable view of his character. Stanley was as wicked as he was wealthy, as petty as he was pious. His soul may have been holy, but his behavior was wholly rotten. The last time Hope had seen him, he had shouted drunkenly that she would preach at Faith Chapel over his dead body.