A Director's, Cut

by Simon Parke

Published 28 May 2014
‘On stage, the light reveals a chair, on which the lone figure of a middle-aged lady sits. Bathed in creamy light, she gazes heavenwards, mouth open in motionless wonder. Her body pushed forward and her head yanked back, simultaneously, separating the vertebrae, as the pathologist would later say. And her throat cut, a mess of blood.’

AN ABBOT PETER MYSTERY

When the curtains of the Bell Theatre open for the second half of Mother’s Day, a new play commissioned for the venue’s thirtieth anniversary, the lifeless body of theatre director Hermione Bysshe-Urquhart MBE is revealed. Within the startled audience sit retired monk Abbot Peter and his guest for the evening, Detective Inspector Tamsin Shah.

Tamsin and Peter undertake a new murder investigation among the cast and crew of the theatre, a struggling pro-am business operating from a converted church on the cliffs of the derelict seaside town of Stormhaven. Dark secrets from the past will be unearthed, some lying deeper than others.

A Psychiatrist, Screams

by Simon Parke

Published 7 October 2013
`Although seven clowns started the evening alive, only six still breathed by the evening's end. And while everyone saw the murderer and knew the murderer, no one knew their name.'

Henry House, an Elizabethan manor, is now occupied by Mind Gains, a new therapy centre in Stormhaven. But a Halloween party for staff and clients ends in gruesome and bloody murder. Once again, retired monk Abbot Peter and his niece Detective Inspector Tamsin Shah are called upon to solve the mystery.

Who could have reason to kill the mild-mannered therapist, Barnabus Hope? What did he know that he shouldn't? As the Abbot and Detective enter the darkness, they find a therapy centre with much on its mind; and as staff and clients come under suspicion, Henry House proves reluctant to hand over its haunting secrets. Are there clues in the writings of a 14th century Persian poet? Maybe. But the psychology of horror must first have its day.

A Vicar, Crucified

by Simon Parke

Published 29 May 2013
Abbot Peter has recently swapped his failing leadership of a remote monastery in the Sinai desert for retirement in the bleak and stormy English seaside town of Stormhaven. When the charismatic local vicar is discovered dead - crucified, naked, to a cross on the vestry wall - Abbot Peter is invited to act as a Special Witness investigator.

He is assigned to work alongside Detective Inspector Tamsin Shah - young, pretty, brash, unsentimental and, by a peculiar quirk of fate, a niece that Abbot Peter never knew he had.

A cast of suspects to the murder of Rev. Adam Fontaine is quickly revealed from within the church's own community - including the formidable flower-arranger, the egotistical bishop, the compassionate curate, the irascible youth worker and the frustrated treasurer. Nine people were at the meeting that immediately preceded the vicar's shocking death. Could the mystical nine-point Enneagram revered by the father he never knew help Abbot Peter uncover the murderer?

More deaths will follow before he discovers the answer.