Apart from the excellent detective mystery element, the combination of vivid characterisation and wry humour is leavened with a compassionate and sincere understanding of our human frailties. This form of environmental racism poses serious and disproportionate threats to the enjoyment of several human rights of its largely African American residents, including the right to equality and non-discrimination, the right to life, the right to health, right to an adequate standard of living and cultural rights”, the experts said. He had grown up in the Moravian Brethren, a church of exiled Protestants from Bohemia, some exiled as far from home as Oldham, where the Vanloos had settled, part of a community still shaped by the belief that it existed on earth to live the life of heaven [.

It is set in the 1980s with its culture, the change and turbulence of Britain under Maggie Thatcher, with its class divisions. According to data from the Environmental Protection Agency's National Air Toxic Assessment map, the cancer risks in predominantly African American Districts in St James Parish could be at 104 and 105 cases per million, while those threats in predominantly white districts range from 60 to 75 per million. Magic mushrooms are discovered growing in the local forest, hard drugs are being peddled in the local town of Braunstonbury, and Gothic behaviour is emerging amongst the young. But he is also gloriously astute on the details of village interactions, quietly smiling at the “C of E way of correcting someone by replying with the right word to their wrong”, or at the difficulties of getting men to sing in church as the tune rises higher. And Daniel, the “still centre of a turning world”, mild, kind and deep, is an enjoyable protagonist to spend 400 pages with.This collection contains images of Church of England parish registers recording baptisms, marriages, and burials during the years 1538–1812 from various parishes in Gloucestershire, England. A clash of ideologies appears inevitable, however when a lifeless body is discovered on a nearby deserted airfield, Daniel must set aside his personal reservations and engage in the quest for truth.

Coles also includes a great deal of information about what seem to be very arcane aspects of CofE belief, liturgy, and feast days: it's the kind of Christianity I like best.A truly delightful read of a reverend, his mother, their dachshunds, the community and the dramas and foibles of humans in everyday life and death.

But Coles gets too involved in doing down other Christians – Daniel is mainstream CofE, and is not happy about his more evangelical colleague.This is a thoroughly engaging and enjoyable mystery with its echoes of the golden age of crime, the protagonist ensures it immerses the reader in the church, parish life, and the differences that are accommodated within the C of E, from Daniel's compassionate approach to the more rigid, judgemental, evangelical approach that he is forced to confront. In its favour, the book tackles big subjects such as bereavement and forgiveness – after a difficult visit, in the study the “grief was still faintly there, like smoked cigarettes”.