Some detectives seem to have a divine calling to solve mysteries. Many are members of the clergy, such as ever popular Father Brown and his TV spin-off, Sister Boniface, not to mention the dishy Grantchester vicars. Father Brown’s legendary exploits began in 1910. The 1960s brought a wave of clerical mysteries in contemporary settings, including Harry Kemelman’s Rabbi Small, Ralph McInerney’s Father Dowling, and Andrew Greeley’s Father Blackie Ryan. The late 1970s brought the twelfth-century detective Brother Cadfael. The ensuing decades brought a wide assortment of excellent mysteries built around religious themes set in many interesting places and times. The mostly twenty-first-century titles below exemplify the tradition.
“At Midnight Comes the Cry”
By Julia Spencer Fleming. 2025. Minotaur Books.
Clare Fergusson, an Army pilot before seminary school, is an Episcopal priest in a small Upstate New York town. Her capacity for compassion and her determination know no bounds. When Clare’s hopes for a proverbial “White Christmas” are dashed by white supremacists, she finds herself facing some frightening realities that reach up into the forbidding Adirondacks.
“Dancing Dead”
By Deborah Woodworth. 2002. Avon.
In the sixth entry in a truly unique series, Sister Rose Callahan, eldress of the dwindling community of believers at a Shaker village in depression-era Kentucky, must address rumors of the ghost of a former sister dancing nightly in an abandoned out-building, which has drawn curious outsiders to the site. When the dead body of one of the brothers is found, Rose needs to move quickly to protect her flock in this sympathetic look at a lost sect that welcomed all.
“Death in Holy Orders”
By P. D. James. 2007. Ballantine Books.
In what is considered one of James’ most accomplished novels, Scotland Yard Inspector Adam Dalgliesh, semiofficially following up on the death of a student, visits a theological college on the coast of East Anglia, where he coincidentally spent many summers. When a visiting archdeacon is murdered, it becomes an official investigation.
“The Fever of the World”
By Phil Rickman. 2022. Corvus.
The captivating Merrily Watkins is an Anglican priest who also serves as an exorcist for the Diocese of Hereford www.booklistonline.com 6 Booklist Reader | June 2026in rural England near the Welsh border. While the world grapples with the coronavirus, Watkins is drawn into a case in which she investigates a crime somehow entangled in haunting Wordsworth verses, her usual demons somewhat diminished by the overwhelming reality of the pandemic.
“Fortune Like the Moon”
By Alys Clare. 2001. St. Martin’s.
The Hawkenlye mysteries are set in the time of King Richard the Lionheart and center on an abbey in Kent presided over by Abbess Helewise. In this first book, it is 1157, a young nun is killed, Richard sends his trusted knight, Sir Josse d’Acquin, to investigate, and an amazing partnership is formed. This series will please devotees of Brother Cadfael, Sister Fidelma, and Brother Athelstan.
“The Haunted Monastery”
By Robert van Gulik. 1997. University of Chicago.
In one of the many venerated Judge Dee mysteries, Dee, a magistrate in China during the Tang Dynasty, seeks refuge from a storm in a Taoist monastery in the mountains. The abbott mysteriously dies, and the judge, recalling three earlier unsolved deaths of young women in the same monastery, embarks on a quest for justice and revenge in this gothic gong’an (crime fiction involving a magistrate) novel originally published in 1961.
“Murder at Gulls Nest”
By Jess Kidd. 2025. Atria.
In the UK in 1954, Sister Agnes, a Carmelite nurse for 30 years, leaves the order to search for a missing postulant, heading off to Gore-on-Sea, a Christie-esque Kent seaside town, where the young woman was staying when she disappeared. Adjusting to the outside world is difficult, but Agnes, now Nora, succeeds in a narrative that is somewhat dark, yet diverting.
“The Name of the Rose”
By Umberto Eco. 1980.
Harcourt. Eco’s beloved and internationally best-selling mystery is about a brilliant monk investigating accusations of heresy at an abbey in Italy in 1347 when a series of bizarre deaths take him down a dark and dangerous path.
“Shameful Murder”
By Cora Harrison. 2015. Severn.
Reverend Mother Aquinas makes her debut in this mystery set in Cork, Ireland, in 1923 during Ireland’s Civil War. The RM calls on one of her former pupils, police sergeant Patrick Cashman, for help when a woman’s body washes up at the gates of the convent chapel. They become a formidable team as the series moves forward.
“Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk”
By Boris Akunin. 2008. Random.
The is the second outing for Sister Pelagia, a bespectacled nineteenth-century Russian nun, a bit of a Father Brown, and a good bite of a Miss Marple. She investigates mayhem in a remote monastery, invoking tragic echoes of Chekhov’s Black Monk and Dostoevsky’s novels, in a series beloved by fans of classic Russian literature as well as mystery lovers.
“The Spider’s Web”
By Margaret Coel. 2010. Berkley/ Prime Crime.
Jesuit Father John Aloysius O’Malley and Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden find themselves on opposite sides in an investigation when a man from the rez is killed and his nonNative fiancée is the prime suspect. The fifteenth mystery in Coel’s series set on Wyoming’s breathtaking Wind River Reservation won a Hillerman Prize.
This article was originally published in Booklist Reader, the magazine for library patrons, from the American Library Association’s nationally distributed book review publication, Booklist.
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