Give Characters Jobs: Clergy

Speaking of religion...I mention in an earlier post that Jessica Fletcher's job of writer--which gives her a reason to travel around the country and make contacts in settings as diverse as higher academe, the theater, and stockbrokers' offices--is a great boon to a mystery series.

One role that supposedly lends itself to equally diverse settings is clergy. 

There are several priest and nun detectives in books and shows: Brother Cadfael, Father Brown, Father Dowling, the clergy from Grantchester. 

In truth, I find them a little less believable than Jessica Fletcher. As Dorothy Sayers points out in Nine Tailors, a clergyman who is doing his job, like Venables, is somewhat too busy visiting parishioners and burying people and training/rehearsing the choir/bell-ringers and making emergency preparations and writing sermons and running festivities and keeping in contact with soldiers, sailors, and missionaries, taking care of the church itself and handling issues that are often resolved, these days, by outside agencies...to run around solving mysteries. 

However, doing all the above IS the reason that the clergyman has so many opportunities to ask questions! 

I rather think the Brits manage their mystery-solving clergy better. Father Dowling always puzzled me since so many of the cases end up being gang/mafia-related. Granted, a few decent clergy members in The Closer deal with gangs. They run up against Brenda as they try to deal honestly with the police and protect their parishioners and do right by specific gang members. But again, they are way too busy dealing with those complicated issues to also run an investigation. 

The Brits produce clergy, like Father Brown, who operate as freelancing members of the community. That is, they occupy positions which allow them to stand in and outside the community. (Cadfael, for instance, is a monk who must live by the Order's rules but his work as an apothecary gives him more freedom than his peers.) Since they also tend to live in  villages, their involvement in any event--while implying as large a death toll as Cabot Cove--is instantly excusable. 

My favorite such detective, of course, is the delightful Sister Boniface, played by the delightful Lorna Watson. Her forensic specialty makes her a consultant for the laidback police. The demands of village life bring her into contact with a variety of people, including visitors. The show also doesn't bother to excuse the number of murders. It's England! And there's a lack of angst (unlike early Midsomer Murders, which seasons made me roll my eyes: I mean, come on, talk about angst based on contrived situations!). 

Sister Boniface is simply a ton of fun.