Deep Waters

January 19, 2009
Callie Anson, curate of All Saints' Church in London, and her beau, Mark Lombardi, a family liaison officer, get caught up in a high-profile investigation in Charles's engrossing third ecclesiastical mystery (after 2007's Secret Sins
). When the baby daughter of a celebrity couple from a reality TV show, Jodee and Chazz, dies in her cot, the subsequent autopsy raises enough questions to bring Det. Insp. Neville Stewart back from his honeymoon, much to his bride's fury. Since Jodee and Chazz live in Callie's parish, Callie becomes involved in arranging the funeral. Mark does his bit to help the bereaved family, but finds himself distracted by his own troubles after his brother-in-law dies of an apparent heart attack. A realistic conflict arises between Mark's devotion to his family and his love for Callie. A tabloid journalist's drive for status heightens the drama. Charles combines credible characters and a puzzling mystery with a tantalizing look at the world of reality TV.

February 1, 2009
Murder and other traumas once more intrude on the lives of a London curate and her friends in Charles's uniquely small-town version of England's greatest city.

Driven from her home above the church hall by roof repairs, Callie Anson (Secret Sins, 2007, etc.) asks her vicar, Brian Stanford, and his wife to take her in. Their forthcoming lack of hospitality indicates what a poor choice Callie's made, but by then bigger problems have emerged through her reluctant involvement in the SIDS death of Muffin Betts, whose parents, after meeting on the reality series twenty-four/seven, have rocketed to wealth but not intelligence or maturity. There's worse news: Muffin was shaken so hard weeks earlier that her unsuspected injuries may have contributed to her death. Nor do the official investigators fare much better. Callie's boyfriend, Family Liaison Officer Mark Lombardi, is put through a bewildering variety of emotions when his sister Serena's philandering husband suddenly dies, and again when he learns that Joe di Stefano's death was murder. And Mark's friend, DI Neville Stewart, enters the case when he's dragged home from his honeymoon, with predictably disastrous effects on his new marriage. In a hundred short scenes whose cutting echoes the rhythms of daytime TV drama, Charles deftly interweaves stories of the suspects, officers and caregivers variously torn between their dreams of fame and peace and family ties that seem to promise anything but.

The mysteries, though authentic, never overwhelm the domestic dramas that unfold in Charles's Pine Valley-on-the-Thames.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

February 1, 2009
The death of the baby born to the stars of a popular British TV show results in a media frenzy and a determined police inquiry led by DI Neville Stewart. Meanwhile, curate Callie Anson gets involved with the funeral arrangements, much to her vicar's disapproval. In her third clerical mystery (after "Evil Intent" and "Secret Sins"), Charles weaves a complex tale around that investigation and the murder of police detective Mark Lombardi's brother-in-law and places the spotlight squarely on our current fascination with celebrities, reality TV, and the quest for fame. Charles's latest is sure to appeal to fans of both British police procedurals and Julia Spencer-Fleming's Episcopal mysteries.

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.