Review – The Reluctant Detective

From the back cover: “Couldn’t resist touching the body, eh?” observed Ben. Faith was defiant. “I had to check for a pulse.”…

Faith was a cop, and a good one. She and her boss (and boyfriend) Detective Inspector Ben Shorter tackled criminals and solved crimes across south-east England. They were a good team. But Faith grew disillusioned with Britain’s tough police culture. . As her disquiet grows, she starts to ask bigger questions – and ends up as a priest in the Church of England, a job from which she considers she can do more good than any police investigation. In the process she and Ben part company: he can’t stand God-botherers, and she finds his convictions-at-any-cost attitude treads on too many vulnerable people.

Faith may have quit the world of crime, but crime has not let her go. Newly ordained, she arrives in the village of Little Worthy, near Winchester, to look around the parish. Within an hour of her arrival, she witnesses the sudden shocking death of a fellow priest. To her distress, the DI assigned to the case is Ben.

At the Bishop’s urging, Faith stays on to look after the improbably named parish of Little Worthy. As she meets her parishioners she learns some surprising details about her apparently well-loved predecessor, and starts to suspect a motive for his death. The cop may have donned a clerical collar, but the questions keep coming. How will she reconcile her present calling with her past instincts? Is she in danger herself? What should she do about Ben?

Then a further horrifying event deepens the mystery…

Poisoned communion wine what a way to go. Obviously someone didn’t like him. Faith started out her career as a cop, now she is a priest how do the two careers go together? And should they? Faith Morgan, to me, is one of the most interesting characters in detective fiction. I mean, come on, a lady priest who used to be a detective and had a boyfriend. How much more unique can you get? And I have never heard of poisoned communion wine before and enjoy this to no end. Faith just cannot let go of the mystery and feels she must solve it so she and her ex-partner, Ben, set out to find the motive. They feel that once they find the motive for murder they will find the murderer, however the murderer is none too keen about being discovered. Faith Morgan has a keen observant eye that catches all the little things that even I missed, and I was watching for them. Martha Ockley is an extremely talented writer who really knows how to tell a story that will grab you and keep you flipping pages until you reach the end. “The Reluctant Detective” is a very exciting book that will keep you engrossed in the characters as Ms. Ockley puts them through their paces. I am so looking forward to the next book from this very talented author