cover image Holy Treasure!

Holy Treasure!

David Williams. St. Martin's Press, $15.95 (218pp) ISBN 978-0-312-03362-0

Having solved the mystery of Treasure in Oxford , amateur sleuth and investment banker Mark Treasure turns up in West London to find out who killed vicar's wife Angela Culdlum. She and a wealthy parishioner had been trying to save St. Martin's church from a declaration of ``redundancy'' when Angela was felled--ostensibly by falling roof-slates. After the police determine that the slates did not sever Angela's carotid arteries without help, Treasure and his wife Molly take hard looks at a long list of likely suspects, including developer and client Aziz, who needs the St. Martin's site for his redevelopment project; Smurt, an American televangelist who wants to make a TV studio out of the church; and Angela's husband, Reverend Nigel, who had treated his wife with supercilious scorn. The Treasures' investigations into other, well-characterized suspects make for diverting reading, although the story is too slow getting underway. (Sept.)