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I'm not the obvious person to review Alison Joseph's latest book SHADOW OF DEATH. After all, my toleration threshold of religious angles in crime fiction is in minus numbers. And in the past I've found myself royally annoyed by our smug nun heroine Agnes. The same misgivings remain to a large extent this time out, but I couldn't put the book down. For those of you who haven't read this London-based series, Agnes is a nun with a taste for the good life and misgivings about her calling. These two points haven't stopped her taking her final vows, though. And she spends an inordinate amount of the book swanning off to eat out with best friend Athena, buying fancy food in the supermarket (a world away from the convent's cheap cornflakes, thin white bread and single cut marmalade), expressing her religious doubts to all and sundry, and missing her flat which she has had to give up. The strength of the series has always been its setting, in London's East End, where Agnes works in the community. This time, though, she is helping to clear an old library from a building that's about to be sold, and finds herself intrigued by some 17th century diaries written by Alice Hawker, which seem to be attracting an inordinate amount of modern day interest. And she is also drawn into affairs at the adjoining psychiatric clinic where a young woman, Tina-Marie is murdered and her daughter disappears. The search for the girl takes Agnes out of London, including a visit to a highly questionable cult in Essex. Joseph is an excellent storyteller who presents the reader with a rich range of characters. Naturally saintly Father Julius is the font of all knowledge and seems able to cure problems with a wave of a hand. I'm always amused by the cast of nuns, most of whom seem fairly ghastly (particularly Sister Lucia) and probably best confined to a convent away from the rest of the population! Philip Sayer, the shrink, has all the most convincing lines as he and Agnes spar over his lack of faith and her continued acceptance of a lifestyle that she seems to have serious doubts about. So I did feel that a final plot twist involving Philip and his troubled wife Serena was a cop-out led more by faith than logic. Joseph also uses the cult, led by shady American Malcolm Noble, as another means of examining people's faith. But it's clumsily done, and her portrayal of Agnes and her wiffly-waffly doubts never quite convinces me. Joseph is, though, very strong on scene-building as the action moves between the creepy and crumbling Collyer House, the hectic psychiatric day centre next door, the convent, a village in Leicestershire (a couple of slightly too convenient coincidences don't help this plot strand) and the HQ of the cult in Essex. I can guarantee you'll spot one baddie with no problem at all, but there's a final twist I didn't see coming. You might feel, as I did, that Agnes's set-up was yet again resolved too easily – and that's problematic for the ongoing series, as it seems to undermine yet again Agnes's integrity. So, an odd book for me to review. I didn't care for most of the characters, and really do not understand why an intelligent and clearly unsettled woman like Agnes should end up in a singularly unquestioning position. I may have said it before in a review, but it bears repeating . . . I don't understand why she couldn't keep her outside life and continue to do good in the community. Nonetheless, SHADOW OF DEATH is a well-structured and engrossing mystery. Clearly how you take it depends on your religious faith, or lack of it.
Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, February 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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