Sister Agnes, for those that don’t know her, is a nun; contemporary, in an open order, based in South London. She is a detective. And, in the archetypal mode of the amateur detective, she finds herself on the outside of things, privy to people’s secrets. In the words of a lovely police officer who has helped me on and off with my research, ‘There’s always someone who knows more than we do.’
In the time of Sherlock Holmes, it was easier for an amateur sleuth to know more than the police. But now, with CCTV, mobile phone tracking, and highly developed forensic science, the expertise of the amateur detective is distilled into that one central point: being the repository of other people’s secrets. And, as Sister Agnes works in a hostel for homeless young people, that is exactly what she is.
The new novel starts with a young woman appearing on the hostel doorstep asking if they’ve seen her husband, a young man on the wrong side of the law who has now gone missing. This one simple event widens out into a much bigger mystery, concerning a medieval silver cup known as the Judas chalice, a priceless, possibly stolen, artefact belonging to one of the old catholic families. It is extremely rare due to its depiction of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas Iscariot, the thirteenth apostle – so rare, in fact, that someone is prepared to kill for it.
I’ve always liked the classic detective structure – an all-knowing central character through which the story is told, with a Marple or a Maigret or a Marlowe at the heart of it. It allows a three-way relationship between author, reader and detective, all sharing the fun of engaging with the story together. The challenge is to make sure the reveal comes as a surprise while at the same time allowing the reader to walk hand in hand with the detective in solving the mystery.
But I also try, in my work, to bear witness to the harm that humans do. People look at Golden Age crime fiction and make the mistake of seeing it as lightweight, as a historical romp in the company of Sayers, Allingham,
Christie et al. But as far as she was concerned, Agatha Christie was writing The Modern Novel. And, having lived through a world war, she needed to talk about human pain, human damage, in a very particular way. For some time, I have circled the idea that as a nun, Sister Agnes will at some point have to tackle the harm of which the church itself is capable, where its huge and powerful influence collides with its dangerous obsession with sex, shame and sin.
Sister Agnes, like many fictional detectives, is a person of contradictions. She has religious faith and yet is constantly beset by doubt; she accepts the unsolvable mystery of a God, and yet the mystery of a killing on her doorstep is there to be solved with careful attention to evidence, to science, to reason.
A Poisoned Chalice,
is the first of two new Sister Agnes novels
Published by Joffe Books,
31 October 2024.
In Paperback and e-book.
A Poisoned Chalice is the eighth in the new series published by Joffe, (with seven of the earlier novels republished under new names). It has been a delight to be back with her, and also with her two best friends, Athena and Father Julius, who accompany her through the story in their own particular ways, Athena with
shopping, clothes, cake and fizzy wine – and Julius with his own
particular and difficult challenge.
The problem of evil may be preached from a pulpit, but what
happens if that evil is within the church, rather than something
external to be fought by the might of the faithful? And how does someone of faith continue within a structure that is so warped, so potentially malign?
Sister Agnes, walking the streets of South London, will find herself wrestling with all these questions.
Alison Joseph is a London-based crime writer and radio dramatist. She started her career in local radio, and then in television as a documentary director. She is the author of a series of novels featuring Sister Agnes, a
contemporary detective nun based in South London. Alison has written about twenty works for radio, including The True Story and also dramatisations of Georges Simenon's Maigret novels.
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