Lead Review (Murder At St Paul’s Cathedral)

• Book: Murder at St Paul’s Cathedral
• Location: The City of London
• Author: Jim Eldridge

Review Author: tripfiction

This is the first in the Cathedral Mysteries series, although it is not the first outing for the main protagonist pair (who have featured in titles such as: Murder at Whitechapel Road Station / Murder at Aldwych Station…)

This is good, solid storytelling that is strong both in sense of place and era. It’s 1941 and a senior chorister has been found dead, wedged behind a cupboard in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral, bludgeoned, as though the perpetrator was fired by anger.

DCI Saxe-Coburg (he is known only as Coburg for obvious reasons) and Sergeant Lampson arrive to investigate, and as they carry out their enquiries, they discover the man was generally an unpopular member of the choir. There is clearly reticence on the part of those interviewed and so Coburg feels it would be appropriate to spend the night with the team from the Night Watch, charged with protecting the structure from bombs and fires and anything else untoward. Then, a link takes the investigators to Bletchley Park, where they meet a certain Mr Turing… but soon there is another murder.

I do love a bit of new learning when I read a novel and there are certainly some great titbits inserted into the narrative. The Cathedral has a small hospital, created in 1890, and the dome weighs 67,000 tons, so if that were to fall, it would crush everything (and everyone) beneath it.

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