Hannah Stephenson

Celebrity vicar Richard Coles tells about his debut murder-mystery novel

It has been a time of upheaval for the Reverend Richard Coles, celebrity vicar, ex-Strictly contestant, former pop star and Radio 4 presenter. He’s beginning a new life on the Sussex coast, having retired as parish priest in Northamptonshire after 11 years. The move follows the passing of his civil partner, David, who died in 2019 aged 43 from alcohol addiction, about whom he wrote in a heartfelt memoir, The Madness Of Grief, published in 2021.

Coles, former keyboard player in the 1980s band The Communards, has now entered a world of cosy crime with his debut novel Murder Before Evensong, set in the fictional sleepy parish of Champton – where an eminent member of the community is found dead at the back of the church, stabbed in the neck with a pair of secateurs.

“Any parish priest will feel a certain affinity with a detective, because we both spend our lives looking at communities which on the surface might appear to be tranquil and settled places – but underneath, all kinds of passions are surging. Sometimes, they send up little ripples which disrupt the surface – sometimes in spectacular ways – and that’s what happens in this book,” he explains. “I’ve also always loved crime fiction, so I fancied having a go.”

He is no stranger to encountering nasty goings-on under the surface of idyllic parish life. “When I became vicar of Finedon in a sleepy shire, everyone thought it would be tea parties and bazaars and stuff – and it was all that. But actually, in my first week, there was a murder. Lift the lid on any community and you will find the same ingredients, because human beings are human beings, and we do what we do. It caused a lot of anxiety and worry and upset in the community, and my job is to deal with that stuff.

“Everything comes to the vicarage door in one form or another, and murders create ripples that go far and wide.”

There have been times when he has been threatened with violent behaviour.

“I’ve been punched a few times. I was once threatened with a machete. I’d just been ordained and I went to see someone who was very distressed and suffering a psychotic episode at the time.”

Coles suggests violence against the clergy might have become more commonplace, because they spend a lot of time dealing with people in severe mental distress who cannot get the professional care they need, as resources are so stretched.

He has had to adopt an air of detachment to do the job properly, but he still feels moved by what happens to people.

“I remember doing a funeral – a woman who died in her 50s of breast cancer. She worked at Asda and all her fellow Asda workers did a guard of honour in their Asda fleeces outside the crematorium, and that just completely overwhelmed me for a second.”

In the novel, a plan to install a lavatory in church divides members of the parish, leaving the main protagonist, Canon Daniel Clement, rector of Champton, trying to keep his fractured community together. Some of his ideas for characters and stories are gleaned from his parishioners. “And I’m nosy,” he admits. “Lots of vicars are nosy.”

Murder Before Evensong by The Reverend Richard Coles, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £16.99.

The Reverend Richard Coles.