I read this book in February, 2025.

Of late, I have been writing these reviews under three headings - Characters , Personal Lives and Main Plots .

Characters .

Sidney Chambers (who will be 33 on 14.02.54) is the Vicar of Grantchester, and the son of Alec and Iris. He has a sister Jennifer, and a brother Matthew. His stipend is £550 pa - a pittance. Although few know, he fought in the last war, and won an MC. His pet labrador puppy, Dickens, is a present from Amanda Kendall.
Amanda Kendall is Jennifer's best friend and flatmate. She works at the Nat. Gallery. She is a possible love interest for Sidney.
Mrs Silvia Maguire is Sidney's daily help and housekeeper. She was born on 21.01.1901, the day Queen Victoria died.
DI Geordie Keating of Cambridge Police is married to Cathy, and they have 3 children.
Leonard Graham is Sidney's new curate, appointed during the year.
Stephen Staunton, murdered, Irish, a solicitor.
Hildegard Staunton was married to Stephen, and teaches piano. She too is a possible love interest for Sidney.
Miss Annabel Morrison is Stephen's secretary.
Pamela Morton had been having an affair with Staunton.
Clive Morton, solicitor, was Staunton's business partner.
Derek Javis is the Cambridge coroner.
Ben Blackwood, a Magdelene man, an architectural historian, is writing the history of Locket Hall, owned by Lord Teversham.

Private Lives :

The story is set in 1954. Sidney Chambers, vicar of Grantchester is 32/33. Every Thursday he meets his friend DI Geordie Keating in the RAF bar of the Eagle for a game of backgammon and a pint or two. Sidney's parents do not approve of his sister Jennifer's latest boyfriend, Johnny Johnson who runs a jazz club with his father Phil (the cat) Johnson who has a long police record but is now reformed. Sidney is a jazz lover. His brother Matthew plays is a skiffle band.

There are two love interests in Sidney's life - Amanda Kendall and Hildegard Staunton. Amanda is Jennifer's best friend and flatmate. Amanda is as rich as Sidney is poor. They are sort of in love with each other, but call it a hearty friendship. Geordie Keating thinks Sidney should propose to Amanda, but such is her busy, whirlwind social life, how could she adjust to live as a poor vicar's wife ? Sidney and Amanda get into all sorts of scrapes together through the year, and Amanda's father tells her to marry one of her many rich suitors and never to see Sidney again. Associating with Sidney is too dangerous. Amanda ignores her father's advice. She tells Sidney that she will never marry without love, that he will have a veto over whom she marries, and that he will conduct the wedding service - but at some distant future. She admits that if Sidney married someone else first, she would be broken. This may be a possibility ? Amanda has given Sidney a black labrador puppy which he renames Dickens.

The other love interest is a widow - Hildegard Staunton. Her husband Stephen was murdered in the first of the six stories in this book. She met Stephen who was Irish in Berlin. They were to live in Ireland, but never did. She doesn't like living in Cambridge - there is too much but understandable post war prejudice against Germans. She teaches piano, but does not have many pupils. Sidney and Hildegard feel comfortable, and at home in each other's company. They do not analyse their feelings for each other, but is it love ? Hildegard returns to Berlin, but Sidney is invited to visit, and they write to each other. At the end of the book Sidney tells Geordie that he is to visit Hildegard after Christmas. Geordie asks if Amanda knows. No, says Sidney, but it's not a secret. I think it should be says Geordie.

In the course of the book Sidney acquires a curate to help him with church duties - Leonard Graham. He may have homosexual leanings, but it's 1954, and illegal. Leonard never admits to this, but without lying.

The Main Plots : There are six stories that follow one after the other, as the year progresses, often involving the same characters. I will say something about each : -

1. The Shadow of Death.

Sidney has just buried Stephen Staunton - an apparent suicide, a bottle of whisky on his desk, he blew his brains out. Stephen and Clive Morton were solicitors and business partners. Pamela Morton, Clive Morton's wife, visits Sidney. She and Stephen had been having an affair, and planned to run away together - no way would he commit suicide. DI Geordie Keating is not interested - it's an obvious suicide, full stop. Sydney has to investigate. He visits Stephen's wife Hildegard, a German - and so Sydney and Hildegard meet. She says Stephen had no enemies, but he should ask Stephen's secretary Miss Annabel Morrison. The whisky on Stephen's desk was not the distinctive malt he drank. Later Miss Morrison gives Sidney an apparent suicide note, and Stephen's personal diary. The diary was kept in pencil, and rubbed out after each day. Curiously it seemed to be sometimes split into morning and afternoon sections - AM and PM. It is Sidney that realises AM and PM could stand for something else. It's quite a neat story which I won't spoil. Throughout, Sidney keeps Hildegard informed, and they develop a friendship, perhaps it's more.

2. A Question of Trust

This is another interesting story. Sidney's old friend Nigel Thompson, an MP, has invited Sidney to a New Year's Eve party. Sidney's sister Jennifer is there with her new boyfriend Johnny Johnson, and her flatmate Amanda Kendall. Guy Hopkins gives Amanda a jewellery box and asks her to open it. It's an expensive (325 guineas) ruby and diamond engagement ring. Everyone admires it as it is passed round, but Amanda has not actually said yes. Nigel drops a bottle of Champagne - glass and mess everywhere. However the ring has now gone missing - who had it last ? When a taxi arrives for Daphne Young, Guy insists on searching her handbag before she leaves - no ring. Amanda and Guy argue, and the proposal is withdrawn. Everyone thinks that Johnny Johnson stole the ring - his father is an ex cat burglar, like father like son. When MP Nigel does not want the police involved, Jennifer volunteers Sidney's services to investigate. Daphne's father is a retired jeweller. Sidney sets up a reconstruction with a cheap ring from Woolworths. Amazingly, this too goes missing. Sidney goes to retreive it, and produces the original ring. Who stole it ? Read the story. As an aside, Daphne's introduces Sidney to her lodger, Leonard Graham who is looking for a position as a curate somewhere.

3. First do no Harm.

Inspector Keating wants Sidney's help. Old Mrs Livingstone has died. Her daughter Isobel and her doctor Michael Robinson can now get married, and they want a quick cremation. However, there are rumours that Michael "helped" Old Mrs Livingstone on her way. Someone has complained to Derek Jarvis, the coroner. How much morphine is an acceptable dosage to alleviate only suffering? Exceed that and it may be murder. A post mortem is required. Soon another of Doctor Robinson's older patients has died, and now no one want's the doctor near them in case he kills them. It's quite a puzzle for Sidney.

4. A Matter of Time

Sidney takes Inspector Keating with him to Johnny Johnson's jazz club to hear the great American star Gloria Dee perform. Jennifer is there, as is Johnny, and Phil Johnson, Johnny's disreputable father. Also there is is Claudette, Johnny's sister and her father's favourite. As the evening progresses, Sidney is enthralled with Gloria Dee's singing - a world famous artist. Next there is a scream. Someone has strangled Claudette. Geordie takes over until the local police arrive - call an ambulance, contact Scotland Yard, lock the doors, no one can leave. Inspector Williams of the Yard arrives to take charge of the murder enquiry. Everyone in the Johnson family is shattered. Her father Phil doted on Claudette. Amanda is there too. Earlier, she had seemed to recognise one of Gloria's supporting crew, but he denied knowing her. Sidney's services are volunterred - Jennifer tells him that, after all, Claudette was soon to become her sister. It turns out to be a revenge killing.

5. The Lost Holbein

Sidney is a guest of Lord Teversham at Locket Hall. Teversham is complaining of death duties,and may have to sell one of his precious paintings, or bequeath it to the nation. Sidney recommends Amanda to Lord Teversham. She works at the National gallery and will advise him. Amanda visits Locket Hall, and is very taken with a dark portrait of a mystery woman. This painting had been restored about 10 years ago on advice from an insurance assessor. Amanda tells them that the painting is a copy put back into the original frame. If she is correct, the original may be a missing painting of Anne Bolyn, and worth a fortune. Amanda goes in search of the original, working solo, and finds herself locked in a bathroom of an isolated cottage, captured by a wierd lunatic man who drugs her and almost rapes her. Read the story. Not unreasonably Amanda's father doesn't want her associating with Sidney any longer - too many dangerous things happen when he is around !

6. Honourable Men.

Sidney is participating in a local amateur dramatic version of Julius Caesar, but set in a 1930's fascist state. The director is Derek Jarvis, the coroner. Caesar is stabbed on stage. The actor is Lord Teversham, one of the prop knives had been substituted with a real one, and Lord Teversham is dead. Sidney is there, and so is very much involved. Lord Teversham was a homosexual - illegal in the 1950s. Was it a crime of passion by one of his lovers ? Chatting to Sidney, Amanda had told him that, a while ago, when drunk, her exasperated father had threatened to kill her if she still mixed with Sidney. She goes on to say that it must be very difficult for a father to kill a favourite son or daughter - "so I'm not worried". This remark solves the case for Sidney.

All in all, it' a good read, although I would prefer a single long story to six little ones. Meanwhile we must read on to follow the Sidney / Amanda / Hildegard love triangle.

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