Author: Stephens, Penny

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Published on 17 July 2025 by Quercus Publishing in the United Kingdom.

Hardback | 368 pages, N/A
241 x 164 x 33 | 576g

'A new star in the crime-writing firmament' Elly GriffthsThe charming and delightfully cosy debut crime novel from Reverend Penny Stephens.

Weddings can be murder . . .

Reverend Clare Brakespear is used to a challenge. With a young family to wrangle, a parish to manage and a particularly excitable Golden Retriever by her side, life is never dull. But when she attends a wedding where one of the guests is fatally stabbed with a cake knife, even Clare admits that she might have been given too much to handle this time.

As the police investigate the murder, they zero-in on one woman as their prime suspect, who they believe had the motive, means and opportunity to commit the crime. The trouble is, Clare is convinced that they have the wrong person. She might not understand forensic testing and finger-tip searches, but if there's one thing Clare does know, it's people and the complexities of their emotional lives. So she decides to take matters into her own hands. However, investigating a murder is no mean feat and Clare soon finds herself embroiled in a complex web of family secrets and deceptions. Is she in way over her head or can she find the real killer before an innocent woman is sent down?