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The Unexpected Death of Father Wilfred

Author: Julius Falconer

Publisher: Pneuma Springs Publishing

Published: 2009-09-09

Total Pages: 156

ISBN-13: 1905809719

One February evening in the year 1968, Fr Wilfred, the parish priest of the Sacred Heart Catholic church in Droitwich, tumbles out of his confessional, stabbed to death. His older sister demands the best detective in the force, and Stan Wickfield is appointed to the case. Unfortunately he cannot identify either the means or the motive of the murder, much less the perpetrator. His investigation leads him through the highways and byways of tensions in the Catholic Church in the wake of the Second Vatican Council and brings him face to face with anti-Catholic sentiment in the local population. His suspects include an eccentric and learned septuagenarian spinster who quotes d’Azeglio every time they meet, a school technician rejected for the priesthood because of his sexuality, the custodian of Kenilworth Castle and a bookmaker with a taste for anti-papal sentiment. Motives for the priest’s death waver confusingly between contempt for his office, disapproval of a teenage indiscretion, personal hatred and suicide. Wickfield is at his wits’ end until his wife’s reading – a novella by Nicholas Montserrat – prods him towards a triumphant solution. The story comes to a dramatic climax in two sermons preached by the dead priest’s curate, Fr Gabriel. Julius Falconer never fails to write serious and stimulating stories with humour, a wealth of researched detail and subtle plots. Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.

Death by Aloe-Seed

Author: Julius Falconer

Publisher: Pneuma Springs Publishing

Published: 2014-02-20

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 1782283315

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Struggling to maintain his usual round of pastoral care, agricultural concerns, family life and church services, the vicar of Sherburn in Elmete (1686-1771), parson and part-time farmer, again finds himself embroiled in a murder investigation forced on him by the indolence of the local law officers. He skitters about in pursuit of a one-eared footpad, a scarred man and an elusive pedlar, is arrested and tried for theft, thwarts a plot to murder the local miller and confronts a villainous highwayman – all, apparently, to no purpose. However, by resolutely excluding curses, spirits and bogles - the explanations offered by others - and concentrating on rational solutions to the mystery, he succeeds, finally and triumphantly, in identifying the murderer. Expertly edited for modern readers by the redoubtable Mr Falconer, this second chronicle of the doings of the vicar of Sherburn in Elmete draws the reader cosily into eighteenth-century village life where medicine is primitive, travel arduous and time-consuming and officers of the law less than eager to perform their functions. Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.

The Trials of Thomas Roxby

Author: Julius Falconer

Publisher: Pneuma Springs Publishing

Published: 2014-05-22

Total Pages: 187

ISBN-13: 1782283439

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We are in the sleepy village of Sherburn in Elmete, Yorkshire, in the year of grace 1729. When George Bywater, the vicar’s servant, is clubbed to death as he collects the parish tithes, the vicar undertakes to track his killer. Unfortunately, his efforts are thwarted at every turn. Threatened with violence, arrested and tried on three separate occasions, on charges that include murder, harbouring a felon and poaching, he is saved from transportation – or worse! – only by an act of God (naturally). He is hauled before the archdeacon and then the archbishop himself for carrying out his investigation at the expense of his pastoral duties. Forbidden to proceed as he wishes, he yet takes advantage of a tip-off from a local magistrate and a chance encounter with a reformed footpad to pursue his inquiries - in a pure spirit of duty, of course – and comes up with a peculiarly delicate challenge to his conscience. This light-hearted tale is the third Chronicle from Sherburn, in which Julius Falconer presents for the modern reader the absurd adventures penned by the hapless vicar. Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.

A Death Twice Avenged

Author: Julius Falconer

Publisher: Pneuma Springs Publishing

Published: 2009-06-05

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13: 1905809611

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From the top of the stairs, a little girl of five overhears an argument in the sitting-room below, between her father and a late-night visitor. Frightened and uncertain she dared not descend the staircase but sat trembling at the top, unable to return to bed. Her father is killed. She did not see the killer and cannot remember clearly the content of the conversation, but she remembers the killer’s voice. Twenty years later she recognises the voice, identifies its owner and sets out to take her revenge. The first part of her plan succeeds, and her quarry goes to gaol for six months, but in putting into action the second part, she disappears. Her husband reports her missing, a search is instigated. The police authorities in Worcester believe that Inspector Wickfield is the best man for the job, but he seems to do nothing but stumble from one blind alley to another. His investigation leads him and his sergeant, Spooner, to interview a businessman in Spain, a dotty clergyman, a cashiered army major, a gushing hypnotherapist, a horsey countrywoman and a seedy cabinetmaker, in an attempt to unravel the sequence of events – oh, and there is an important interlude in Scotland - but enlightenment comes only when Wickfield’s wife cracks a philosophical joke. In this work of detective fiction, Julius Falconer delights his readers yet again with a deliciously teasing and ingenious plot, laced with comments on life, the universe and everything – and that, of course, includes revenge. Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.

Over and Doubt

Author: Julius Falconer

Publisher: Pneuma Springs Publishing

Published: 2013-06-06

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13: 1782282998

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Fancy a bit of political theory mixed up with your murder? a group of Danish students with daring plans for a new world order? a scam involving some missing music scores? wolf-ravens in Scandinavian folklore? Then this is the book for you! Inspector Wickfield and Sergeant Hewitt are invited to take on the investigation into the murder of a woman in the St John’s Wood area of London. The metropolitan police have arrested her husband, and, although he vigorously protests his innocence, Wickfield, like his colleagues before him, finds it difficult to believe him. The investigation takes a different turn when the inhabitants of a sleepy manor-house in Gloucestershire are outraged by the appearance of a dog’s head and a dead rook mounted on a spike in their drive. Follow the inspector in an intricate and baffling investigation in which only a brainwave saves his reputation. Allow the narrator to lead you by the hand (or possibly by the nose) until, it may be, the light dawns on you before it dawns on the inspector. Gracious English, dry wit, learned asides, well-researched background – all the Falconer hallmarks are here. Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.

The Wichenford Court Murder

Author: Julius Falconer

Publisher: Pneuma Springs Publishing

Published: 2010-10-28

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 1907728031

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A suicide before the First World War, a university career cut short by drink and debt, a missed business opportunity, family antagonisms, a threat to jobs on the estate, all give the inspector some food for thought, until he rumbles the one tiny mistake that leads to the unmasking of a killer.

A Figure in the Mist

Author: Julius Falconer

Publisher: Pneuma Springs Publishing

Published: 2011-08-26

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 1907728236

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When Lady Amelia Walden is murdered at Monk Fryston Hall Hotel in Yorkshire on the night of her eightieth birthday, the chief suspect is Robert Purbright, a bachelor in his fifties engaged at Farlington Hall, the ancestral Walden mansion, to catalogue her extensive collection of stamps. At his trial, the prosecution allege that he was creaming off choice specimens for himself and that his employer was beginning to have her suspicions. Exposure would have brought his career to an unpleasant end. The jury, however, find him Not Guilty. Enraged by their obtuseness, Lady Amelia¿s son, Toby, vows to prove them wrong.The detective inspector who had been in charge of the investigation, Walter Moat, admits to Toby Walden, in a strictly off-the-record conversation, that the police had made a poor case; but he also lays some of the blame on counsel for the prosecution for not fully exploiting the evidence. Despite his best amateur efforts, Walden does no better - until a second murder offers more promising openings. A book by Freud and an Iroquois legend conspire to raise Walden¿s hopes of finally getting Purbright convicted. But will raised hopes be enough?All the hall-marks of Falconer are here: velvet-smooth English, well-shaped narrative, erudite allusions, and a rich surplus of thought-provoking obiter dicta: in short, intelligent entertainment at its finest, for the connoisseur.

A Fearful Madness

Author: Julius Falconer

Publisher: Pneuma Springs Publishing

Published: 2013-03-21

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1782282610

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A police investigation into the violent death of a part-time cathedral verger stalls for lack of incriminating evidence. However, three people have a close interest in clearing the matter up where the police have failed: the victim's sister, and two suspects released without charge and eager to clear their names.

Troubled Waters

Author: Julius Falconer

Publisher: Pneuma Springs Publishing

Published: 2010-04-15

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 1905809891

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Inspector Wickfield and Sergeant Hewitt find themselves caught up in a saga of murder, illicit money-making and racist thuggery. A young girl’s body is found one morning on the banks of a canal. With help from a clairvoyant, the trail leads the investigating officers to London, and thence to Reading and Augsburg. They find themselves mixing with butchers, decorators, fashion retailers, dentists and the leisured rich, bargees, ex-cons and bilingual administrators, but the mythical and mysterious Zedler, who seems to hold all the threads in his hands, eludes them. Is he the moving force behind the British League, a right-wing political movement whose aim is to keep foreigners out of Britain? Is he the brains behind the counterfeiting operations? Is he the murderer? Wickfield finds out with a little help from his wife, who fortunately has a better insight into Robinson Crusoe than he does! As always with Julius Falconer, you, the reader, are given all the information available to the detective officers, and the vital clue is there for you to spot - if you are up to it! Take your time, enjoy the many detours and red herrings, the literary allusions, the religious and philosophical byways, the silver-smooth English - and keep your eye on the ball if you can! You are guaranteed a stimulating read. Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.

The Bite of a Mad Dog

Author: Julius Falconer

Publisher: Pneuma Springs Publishing

Published: 2013-09-26

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 1782283145

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It is the summer of 1728, and we are in the village of Sherburn, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, with its handsome church, boys’ grammar-school, ancient tavern and tranquil rural population. Below the church lies the site of the palace of the kings of Elmete. Nearby, across the common and past the woods, are the grand houses of commissioner of the peace Squire Hawley at Scarthingwell Hall and magistrate Sir Ralph Gascoigne at Parlington Hall. An apparent conspiracy to re-establish the sixth-century Ancient British kingdom of Elmete has worrying, and sometimes hilarious, consequences for the hapless vicar, whose meagre detective skills are stretched to their limit. Both the squire and Sir Ralph are only too happy to leave it all to the vicar – until, that is, the vicar is arrested for gun-smuggling and the squire disappears. It then transpires, however, that the conspiracy is merely camouflage for a more interesting crime altogether … This neat tale both faithfully recreates the atmosphere of an eighteenth-century Yorkshire village and offers the modern reader rare entertainment. Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.