The Bishop’s Secret

In the sleepy cathedral city of Beorminster, the calm of clerical society is broken when a mysterious stranger calls on Bishop Pendle after dark, then turns up shot dead soon after. Suspicion falls on the bishop himself, a devout man who plainly has something to hide. Fergus Hume threads the investigation through a gallery of church-town figures: the gossiping widow Mrs Pansey, the scheming chaplain Cargrim, who wants the bishop’s secret for his own ends, and Ben Baltic, an odd detective who is half South Seas missionary and half enquiry agent. Published in 1900, it is a satisfying example of the late-Victorian ecclesiastical mystery, written by the author of the record-breaking bestseller The Mystery of a Hansom Cab. The blackmail, scandal, and buried past reward a patient reader.