Sidney Chambers and the Problem of Evil - (Grantchester) by James Runcie (Paperback)

About the Book

The first in a series of six detective novels set against the backdrop of 30 years of British history, featuring an unforgettable and unlikely new hero, Sidney Chambers.

Book Synopsis

The third book in The Grantchester Mystery Series, and the inspiration for the primetime PBS/Masterpiece television series, Grantchester.

It is the 1960s and Canon Sidney Chambers is enjoying his first year of married life with his German bride Hildegard. But life in Grantchester rarely stays quiet for long.

Our favourite clerical detective soon attempts to stop a serial killer who has a grievance against the clergy; investigates the disappearance of a famous painting after a distracting display of nudity by a French girl in an art gallery; uncovers the fact that an 'accidental' drowning on a film shoot may not have been so accidental after all; and discovers the reasons behind the theft of a baby from a hospital in the run-up to Christmas, 1963.

In the meantime, Sidney wrestles with the problem of evil, attempts to fulfil the demands of Dickens, his faithful Labrador, and contemplates, as always, the nature of love.

The third in 'The Grantchester Mysteries' series - six detective novels spanning thirty years of British history - these four longer stories are guaranteed to delight the many fans of Canon Sidney Chambers.

Review Quotes

"Cozy fans will be pleased." --Publishers Weekly

"Readers definitely are in for a treat when they meet this gentlemanly but worldly man of the cloth. I cannot but hope there are many more cases in his future." --Mystery Scene on the Sidney Chambers series

"Runcie strikes a low-key balance of theology, humor, drama and crime in this collection of ecclesiastical." --Kirkus Reviews

"Runcie's gently persistent protagonist is almost sure to win fans, whether he's engaged in active sleuthing or musing on the nature of evil or love. Major life changes here lead to new beginnings for Chambers that should whet interest in future volumes of these charming cozies just touched with sex and violence." --Booklist

"Deft, witty, yet unconstrained by the literary hipster's horror of being thought uncool, they are quite delicious." --Christianity Today

About the Author

James Runcie is an award-winning filmmaker and novelist. Sidney Chambers and The Shadow of Death, the first in the Grantchester Mysteries series, was published in 2012, inspiring Grantchester, a primetime PBS series starring James Norton as Sidney Chambers. Other books in the series include Sidney Chambers and The Problem of Evil, Sidney Chambers and The Forgiveness of Sins, and Sidney Chambers and The Dangers of Temptation. James Runcie lives in London and Edinburgh.