A Death on Location by The Reverend Richard Coles

A Death on Location is the fourth book in the Canon Daniel Clement detective series by The Reverend Richard Coles. I picked it up in Sainsbury’s a couple of months ago, at the same time as I bought The Impossible Thing by Belinda Bauer.

In 1990, Canon Clement, Rector of Champton, is getting quite a reputation as someone who seems to stumble across murders all the time – and is able to solve them. In A Death on Location, Hollywood has arrived in the village to much excitement.

Bernard, Lord de Floures, is allowing his mansion to be used for a historical film, starring famous actress, Gillian Smith. In return for giving up his peace and privacy, the team behind the film will be doing up his ancestral home. And villagers, including Daniel’s mother Audrey, are working as extras on the film or helping out on set.

In a chaotic scene, in which everyone is dressed as a queen at a masked ball, one of the villagers is stabbed and dies. Detective Sergeant Neil Vanloo is called and stops everyone from leaving the set. But Hollywood actors and directors aren’t used to being given orders by village detectives.

Meanwhile, Canon Clement uses his knowledge of all the villagers to work out who could be the murderer…

With most of the action taking place on the day of the murder, this is a fun read, with the clash in cultures between Hollywood and an English village, as well as between Lord de Floures and the ordinary villagers. There’s lots of nice little quirks and details, not to mention a drug dealer, a pair of dacshunds and a disastrous fish pie.

Gore is kept to a minimum and A Death on Location is definitely on the humorous end of the murder mystery spectrum, but there are still some moving moments.

If you like your murders on the cosy side, I would highly recommend the Canon Daniel Clement series and A Death on Location.