Interesting details of parish life is humorously set out for our enjoyment. Local gossip which Clement’s widowed mother considers her son should know adds to our amusement. Then, within the parish of Badsaddles, there’s a particularly grisly – some villagers say, ritualistic - killing. The mood changes dramatically. Yet when a character muses at one point whether Champton is in danger of turning into St Mary Meade, it's a pertinent question. For all that A Death In The Parish is set in 1989, Champton and its inhabitants - including Daniel himself - seem to be in a time-warp. This book reads very much like something set in the 50s-early 60s - a B&W Ealing film even which, for me, is highly appealing. Children were usually baptized within a few days or weeks of birth. The records may include when baptized and in what parish, child’s Christian name, parents’ given names and the family surname, residence, father’s occupation, and who performed the ceremony. Sometimes you will find additional details such as date of birth. Early records may contain less detail. Parents’ names are recorded and whether or not they are deceased at the time of this marriage. This can help you narrow down a search for their death entries. There is quite a bit of action and drama before Daniel sees the light and explains everything in a drawing room scene reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s Poirot. (Also, not a complaint.) Since the village setting and interactions have Miss Marple vibes, the whole set-up feels a little like a homage to the Queen of Crime.

It's an absolute joy for those of us familiar with a bit of theology and Church dogma, but still very readable as a cosy murder mystery for those that aren't. Set in the 1980s, before the ordination of women in the Church of England, it projects an aura of rural conservatism onto a very disturbing and bizarre sequence of events, and the effect is both credible and captivating. Analyses and tables of cause of death data are published in the annual reports of the Registrar General for Scotland. The Registrars General have also compiled lists of cause of death and assisted with the classification drawn up by the Royal College of Physicians of London in the early 20th century. Today deaths are coded according to international schemes. Use of the Term Illegitimate Secondly, a nagging feeling I had had with the first book - that the setting of the books in the late 80s didn’t serve much purpose beyond allowing characters to be horrifyingly non-PC (or, to call it what it is: allowing characters to be racist, misogynistic and homophobic) - was exacerbated further in this second volume. As an aside to this; what editor allowed the consistent capitalisation of Goth - to refer in all instances but one to the subculture not the ancient tribe - but not the capitalisation of Gypsy, a distinct ethnicity recognised by the Equality Act and, not incidentally, one of the groups (alongside Travellers) that, per recent research, suffer the most racism and prejudice in the U.K..The majority of Church of England parish registers, and many non-conformist registers, are now held in the relevant county and borough record office. A good starting point for locating these is the National Archives' Discovery system. I really enjoyed the first book in this series, ‘A Murder Before Evensong,’ and I am pleased to say that this was just as good – if not better – than the first mystery featuring Daniel Clement, Rector of Champton, who lives with his mother, Audrey. The book opens with a Sunday lunch at Campton House, where Lord de Floures of the ‘Big House,’ is welcoming the new associate vicar, Chris Biddle, his wife, Sally, and their teenage twins, Joshua and Lydia. Things do not get off to a good start, with the twins being fairly badly behaved and Daniel and Chris not seeing eye to eye about matters in the parish. In 2018, St. James Parish Council approved the industrialization of toxic chemical development through the “Sunshine Project” – a subsidiary company of Formosa Plastics Group that would create one of the world’s largest plastics facilities – and the building of two methanol complexes by other manufacturers.

The combined emissions of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per year in a single parish could exceed those of 113 countries, they said. Cultural threat And now I know *when* the stories are set, thanks to the large part played in this novel by Something's Got A Hold Of My Heart by Gene Pitney and Marc Almond, and numerous references to certain then-current events: a date on a letter finally fixes the time-frame of the book's narrative as being between October and November, 1989. At the same time, several events seem to echo more modern times - eg, the eldest son of the Lord of the Manor Bernard de Floures and his Canadian Mohawk fiancée have echoes of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, and the positivity that originally greeted their union. Sadly, the amalgamation of several parishes and the trials of a new job administering the new "super-parish" has given him a lot of work. Add in his interfering mother, his burgeoning friendship with the local Det Sgt and some mysterious new inhabitants in town and, well Daniel may have to more than a few words with his "Boss". For records of deaths overseas (including soldiers who died in the First World War) please go to our Minor Records guide. Information Recorded in the Registers At the same time Neil, fifteen years younger, had discovered in Daniel a guide to the mysteries of worlds he wanted to know but could not yet enter – music, art, architecture – and, even more important, someone who could open up the half-forgotten landscape of his childhood. He had grown up in the Moravian Brethren, a church of exiled Protestants from Bohemia, some exiled as far from home as Oldham, where the Vanloos had settled, part of a community still shaped by the belief that it existed on earth to live the life of heaven [...] Their friendship surprised them also, for their affinity was not at first clear, but it was profound, and as each became more sharply focused to the other, so they grew more sharply focused to themselves.We call on the United States and St. James Parish to recognize and pay reparations for the centuries of harm to Afro-descendants rooted in slavery and colonialism.” A ray of hope My thoughts on A Death In the Parish are quite muddled. I enjoyed the first in the series and started this second full of confidence that I’d feel the same again. And yet… there was a lot I felt uncomfortable about (some of which was also an issue in the first book, some of which was new). When I reviewed the previous book – Murder Before Evensong – last year I haplessly accepted that the Rector’s dogs, which I strongly disliked, were probably a selling-point for some readers. It all gets much worse here, and I wonder why no-one in the book says, “Someone with out-of-control dogs who bite people is not in a position to smugly criticize other people’s children”, as Daniel does. Two books in, and the Reverend Richard Coles' Champton is now firmly on my list of literary places where I enjoy spending time.

The End of the Game (Raven, ★★★★★), the fourth entry in the series, finds Benedict out of her comfort zone, going undercover as a “Wag” – orange make-up is not her usual style – to probe a football match-fixing scandal. As Benedict’s investigation sees her hopping ever more frenetically around Europe, her musings on the dubious ethics of her profession give the story an edge of moral ambiguity, helping to make this the thinking person’s action-thriller of the season. Daniel finds himself entangled in the investigation, uncovering hidden motives, strained relationships, and dark secrets as he seeks to bring the perpetrator to justice. The Biddles are not exactly dysfunctional, but there are clearly tensions within the family unit. Joshua is rebelling against family life, and is cynical about his parents’ religious beliefs. Lydia is more accommodating, but has her own behavioural challenges. Meanwhile Daniel finds his own domestic arrangements subject to change as one of his pet dachshunds is about to deliver an unexpected litter. Couples were usually married in the bride’s parish. Marriage records typically include the bride and groom’s names, residence, date and location of the marriage, names of witnesses, condition (bachelor, spinster, widow, or widower), and the name of the officiant. Some records may also include the father’s name and occupation. Early records may contain less detail.

Church Times/Canterbury Press:

And then it ends on a surprising and possibly a little disappointing (at least for me, and I assume the character involved) note. I wouldn’t call it a cliff-hanger by any stretch of the imagination, but it does make me curious about book 3.

In summary, then, from 1837 onwards there are three potential sources of information about a workhouse death: The Statutory Register of Deaths contains detailed information about each person who has died in Scotland since 1 January 1855 and is of great value to researchers. This guide covers: A Death in the Parish' is the second book in the Canon Clement Mystery series by Richard Coles, a Church of England clergyman.This collection contains images of Church of England parish registers recording baptisms, marriages, and burials during the years 1538–1812 from various parishes in Gloucestershire, England. Finally (and with a mild spoiler warning) the frankly weird friendship between Daniel and the police detective made for strange enough reading, without the queer-baiting about-turn at the end. The 1980s setting — Mrs Thatcher is Prime Minister, the M25 has just been opened, Howard’s Way is the favoured Sunday-night television viewing — reminds us of how much less complicated life was in the era before social media and universal My-Truth-Trumps-Your-Truth syndrome. But the seeds have already been sown: “There is a peculiar forgetfulness of our age, thought Daniel, so enchanted with novelty and the extraordinary success of science and technology, that the longer story of the evolution of the values and institutions and virtues that have long shaped our lives gets lost.” This is my first taste of but the 2nd in the series written by the well known Richard Coles, once a member of the Communards who went on to become a member of the C of E clergy, it features his detective Canon Daniel Clement. It is set in the 1980s with its culture, the change and turbulence of Britain under Maggie Thatcher, with its class divisions. This works perfectly fine as a standalone, there are many references of what happpened previously and the characters that have become established, all of which made me feel as if I knew them well. This is a thoroughly engaging and enjoyable mystery with its echoes of the golden age of crime, the protagonist ensures it immerses the reader in the church, parish life, and the differences that are accommodated within the C of E, from Daniel's compassionate approach to the more rigid, judgemental, evangelical approach that he is forced to confront. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that a story written by a Reverent and featuring a Canon as the main character might be a cozy mystery. Which just goes to show how dangerous it is to assume anything.