"Murder in a Nunnery"

When someone was murdered at Harrington Convent, the police were surprised to discover that most of the resident nuns simply took it in their stride. The Mother Superior in charge of the convent and its girls' school would prove to be a most helpful ally to Chief Inspector Pearson of Scotland Yard as he tried to make sense of the murder and learned, with some surprise, that the nuns had their own way of dealing with the police occupation of their convent. The result is a thoroughly delightful and surprisingly comic mystery called Murder in a Nunnery, written by Eric Shepherd in 1940. It's the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

The Harrington Convent School is – normally – a place of considerable grace and discipline, and the sisters in charge keep a close watch and tight rein on the young girls who are being educated there. Unfortunately for all hands, there has been a murder at Harrington Convent School. A thoroughly unpleasant old woman, the Baroness Sliema, who has been living in the convent's guest house temporarily, is found stabbed to death. Her primary role in life appears to have been as a spoiler, making life miserable for everyone around her; even the Reverend Mother Superior in charge of the convent, when asked if the Baroness was apt to make enemies, replies:

"Apt! It was her hobby! Practice had made perfect. She had quarreled with everybody in the house, including myself. I hate to speak evil of the poor woman, but there it was.” 

The local police, feeling themselves unequal to the job of investigating this murder in a convent school, call in Scotland Yard, in the person of Chief Inspector Pearson. And so the stage is set for a fascinating look at a murder investigation in which – to a certain extent – two worlds collide, that of the nuns living in the convent, led by the Reverend Mother Superior,  and that of the police, led by Inspector Pearson, on the other side.

That sounds more formal or irreverent than it should, and I want to make it quite clear that this is a comedy of manners (or in some cases a comedy about lacking manners) combined with a very good mystery. Through it all, the murder of the Baroness remains the central issue of the plot, with the reader being offered some clues (most quite well disguised) that will eventually lead both Inspector Pearson and the Reverend Mother, working together, to the correct solution to the case. The interplay between these two characters, so different in background and yet each quite clearly in control of his or her part of the investigation, is deftly handled, and the satirical humor is laugh-out-loud funny. Murder in a Nunnery, by Eric Shepherd, is a very short book indeed, and it is a positive antidote if you suffer from too much exposure to the doom and gloom of too many noir mysteries. I’d recommend it to you quite highly.

Comments

[Shay Simmons]

There is a sequel, "More Murder In A Nunnery, written several years later.

[Les Blatt]

Yes, it was released in 1954, 14 years after the first book. As far as I can tell, these two were the only mysteries Shepherd ever wrote. I haven't read the sequel yet, but if it's anywhere close to the quality of the first book, I'll have to add it to my TBR pile - and soon.