The Judgement of Strangers (Roth Trilogy #2) » (Reprint)

ANDREW TAYLOR is the author of several acclaimed novels, including the series of Lydmouth village mysteries and Caroline Minuscule, for which he received an Edgar nomination and Britain’s John Creasey Award. He and his family live in the Forest of Dean in England.

Taylor probes the secret history of murder, delving deep into the past to find the origins of a serial killer in his second novel of the Roth Trilogy. Here is the story of David Byfield, a widowed parish priest with a dark past and a darker future.

The suburban town of Roth is haunted by its past, and struggling to break free. But by initiating a series of gruesome murders and mutilations, echoing crimes committed years before, someone in the village is trying to assure history’s tight grip over the present. The community has no shortage of suspects, from the village vicar in the throes of a midlife crisis to the unusual brother and sister newly relocated to the town of Roth. Audrey Oliphant, churchwarden, spinster and secret admirer of the vicar, fancies herself as Miss Marple, and when the corpse of her cat, Lord Peter, is found nailed to the church door, she decides to investigate. By the end of her investigation, two people are dead, one is in jail, and a fourth is insane.

Publishers Weekly

This second book in the planned Roth Trilogy looks back a generation at some of the origins of characters and action in the first book, The Four Last Things (1997). Taylor builds a powerful narrative as his struggling characters face an array of temptations that the reader knows early on will overwhelm them. Set in 1970 in the village of Roth, near London, the tale is narrated by David Byfield, a Church of England minister. The near bucolic setting hides a raft of jealousies and passions that quietly build and seethe until the inevitable crest. As David, his new wife, Vanessa, his daughter Rosemary, home for school holiday, and his godson Michael try to adapt to living with one another, other forces obtrude. But David's concern with the church fete stirs up trouble, as does Vanessa's research into the life of the mad poet-priest, Francis Youlgreave, buried in the parish church, and Rosemary's infatuation with the handsome young man who has just moved into Roth Park, the village's big manor house. The clincher is David's growing attraction to the young man's ethereal older sister. Although Taylor has willingly sacrificed some suspense by adopting this reverse chronology, he is sufficiently skillful to keep the reader on edge all the way to the stunning climax. (Oct.)