Late of This Parish

The passions simmering behind the solid facades of a small English town and a respected boys' school lead to murder in Detective Chief Inspector Gil Mayo's fourth case (following More Deaths Than One ). Elderly, opinionated and rigidly moralistic, the Rev. Cecil Willard is found smothered to death with a sacramental pillow in St. Kenelm's church in Wyvering. Not a beloved man in the prime of his life, the former head of Uplands House School had become increasingly cantankerous with age and illness, though he retained the power to help choose his successor's successor. Prime suspects in the murder are the two main candidates for that spot: a former suitor of Willard's daughter Laura and the divorced man she hoped to marry, over her father's violent objections. Other suspects include the local vicar's animal-loving wife, who considered Willard responsible for shooting some lawn-destroying badgers, and a gardener, a local light-fingered troublemaker. A bomb by animal-rights activists at a local research foundation and obstructive behavior by some of the suspects' families complicate Mayo's case. Eccles's latest outstanding procedural is marked by her keen perceptions into human relationships. (May)