Looking Back: "The Religious Body"

If you enjoy Michael Gilbert's "Close Quarters," discussed in the last post, you might also enjoy Catherine Aird's early novel about Detective Inspector C. D. Sloan called "The Religious Body." It is set in a convent and deals with a couple of murders and some other assorted mayhem - and it does so in a very fair, and thoroughly witty, manner. You can listen to an audio review here.

I have always enjoyed Aird's novels. A great deal of her dialogue is written with tongue firmly in cheek, and the reader often wonders when Sloan is going to let his own irritability force him into making rude remarks either to his remarkably unskilled sidekick, Detective Constable Crosby, or their really awful superior, Superintendent Leeyes.

In this case, the addition of a murder in a convent - a place where Sloan feels completely out of his element - makes for an excellent and suspenseful book. As I said, if you read the Gilbert book and enjoy it, I think you may like this one as well.