The Becket Factor

 The Becket Factor (1990) by Michael David Anthony [Canterbury Cathedral #1]

Richard Harrison has left intelligence work behind and returned to Canterbury. He serves as the Cathedral's Secretary to the Diocesan Dilapidions Board and takes care of his wife Winnie, who suffers from polio. He promised Winne that he was done with "all that." And then Canon Cratchley dies suddenly--reportedly from a heart attack, though someone says that Cratchely was "stung" on the night before he died. And Harrison's old boss Brigadier Greville shows up asking for Harrison's help. It seems that Cratchley contacted Greville shortly before he died and mentioned something about "the Becket factor." Greville wants Harrison to nose around Canterbury and see if he can find out anything that might prove that Cratchley was murdered.

The next thing Harrison knows, a crew working on refurbishing the stone floor in the Cathedral's crypt discovers an ancient coffin and the rumors fly that the remains of Thomas a Becket have finally been found. Did Cratchley know something about the remains? Is that what his cryptic message to Greville referred to? Or is it code for something else? In Harrison's investigations, he discovers that Cratchley was researching a Bishop with ties to the current front-runner to replace the current Archbishop of Canterbury. And both seem to have mysterious ties to Russia. There are plots within plots and Harrison is nearly too late in putting it all together....because the killer has their eye on another victim.

I am in two minds about this one, so my review has good news and bad news. I'll give you the bad news first. Harrison just isn't all that believable as an ex-intelligence officer. He is SO slow on the uptake and SO gullible, naïve, and blinded by his own prejudices. I cannot believe that England kept this man on the intelligence payroll for longer than two minutes. [spoiler in ROT13 code] Naq tvira gur snpg gung ur'f hfrq gb gur puhepu ngzbfcurer, V ernyyl svaq vg qvssvphyg gb oryvrir gung vg gbbx uvz gur ragver obbx gb svther bhg gung gurer ner zra nyy nebhaq uvz jrnevat pnffbpxf gung ybbx n JUBYR YBG yvxr qerffrf. V zrna, frevbhfyl--zl cebgrfgnag onpxtebhaq vfa'g shyy bs zra va pyrevpny bhgsvgf gung ybbx yvxr qerffrf, ohg V xarj jung jnf tbvat ba. 

On the plus side, I did like his personal relationships. I felt that the way he and Winnie worked their way back to one another (especially with him working his way through some residual effects from the war) was very realistic. He was certainly more perceptive in those instances than he was with anything to do with the mystery. Oh...and the mystery? Well done. The wheels within wheels and the interweaving plot was very good. Just when you thought the last twist had come there was another one and it certainly keeps the reader on his or her toes. I just wish the detection of the plot had been as good as the plot itself.  ★★★--just.

First line: A boy began singing.

Last line: There they remained, hands touching, under the shade of the vine, feeling the cool of the breeze on their faces and hearing, above and around them, the continuing sigh of the leaves.

[To decode: copy the encoded text; click on ROT13 link and paste in box.]

****************

Deaths = 14 (one shot; one buried alive; five natural; two car accident; one hit with ox bone; three stabbed; one burned to death)

All Challenges Fulfilled: 52 Book Club,Mount TBR,TBR 23 in '23,Calendar of Crime,Reading by the Numbers,Medical Examiner,Alphabet Soup Authors,Cloak & Dagger,Stacking the Series,Reading Randomizer,Linz the Bookworm RC,Pick Your Poison,