The Alto Wore Tweed - A Liturgical Mystery

The Alto Wore Tweed - A Liturgical Mystery (#461) by Mark Schweizer is definitely written for a niche audience, but boy, has he found the right audience in me!  Episcopalian? Check.  Former Choir member?  Check.   Former Altar Guild member?  Check.  Former Vestry member?  Check.  Appreciates the more traditional forms of worship and music?  Double check.  But most importantly, have a sense of humor, and can take a joke, even when it's on you?  Also check.

In a North Carolina town where the town's Chief of Police doubles as the volunteer organist/choir master, things are apparently never dull at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church.  A body found in the choir loft is a complicating factor just as the Church Year moves into Advent and Christmas.  The new female rector is setting up backs throughout the congregation, and her behavior after the corpse is uncovered leads Hayden Konig in his professional capacity to suspect that the death was deliberate.  Since he also wants to be the new Raymond Chandler, his suspicions are fed by the plot of the novel he's concocting on his newly acquired typewriter; the one he bought at auction that belonged to Raymond Chandler himself.  Of course Hayden's right about this being murder, but is he correct about who did it?

This book is chock-a-block full of terrible writing (his putative novel), awful puns, and just plain laugh out loud antics that someone like me has no trouble imagining are based on kernels of real experiences.  I could tell a few stories myself...  But along with that, Hayden loves music, and I wish I could once again sing in a choir that performed the kind of anthems and motets the St. Barnabas choir does.  Those were the days.  He's always listening to luscious music, and I've got to love someone who names my all-time favorite Christmas album A Renaissance Christmas by the Waverly Consort as being one of his favorites as well.  So much to love about this book if you've ever been caught up in church politics.  Can't wait to read the next three volumes in this boxed set.  (Which I did borrow from my church library, so I'm glad to say my parish isn't likely to be offended by this delightful mysteries!)