Sidney Chambers and The Forgiveness of Sins

Starred review from March 30, 2015
Set in the 1960s, British author Runcie’s outstanding fourth collection of clerical mysteries (after 2014’s Sidney Chambers and the Problem of Evil) smoothly mixes clever puzzles with meditations on spiritual issues. The title story presents a truly baffling problem: Josef Madara, the principal violinist in a quartet, comes to Canon Sidney Chambers’s Cambridge church seeking sanctuary; Madara claims that he woke up that morning in his hotel room to find his wife covered in blood. When Sidney’s friend on the force, Geordie Keating, accompanies Sidney to the hotel, the room is empty and spotless. In later entries, Sidney attempts to help a woman escape an abusive husband and to show that a death caused by a falling piano was no accident. Sidney and the entire supporting cast, including a new curate with a fondness for cake, are all vividly portrayed, and comparisons to G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown books are amply justified. Agent: David Godwin, David Godwin Associates (U.K.).