All the Reverend Francis Oughterard had ever wanted was some peace and quiet, 
Instead, he becomes entangled in a nightmare world of accidental murder, predatory female parishioners, officious policemen and a drunken bishop. 
As the vicar’s life spirals out of control it is his supercilious cat, Maurice, and bone-obsessed hound, Bouncer, who save the day.

‘A Load Of Old Bones‘ is a peculiar, surprising, irreverant, dryly amusing book that I found myself admiring, in a stunned is-it-really-going-to-go there? way. It made me shake my head and occaisonally smile. It didn’t make me laugh mostly because, in the way of English comedies, at its heart this is a sad story of broken people doing bad things.

When I decided to read a book told from three points of view, the cat, the dog and the vicar, it never occurred to me that the most unexpected point of view would be the vicar’s. I’d imagined a sort Father Brown with pets. A story with all creatures great and small working together as an amateur sleuth team. Whatever ‘A Load Of Old Bones‘ is, it’s not that.

The setting, a quaint English village in the 1950s, the cat, Maurice, supercilious, cynical and striving to remain emotionally detached and the dog, Bouncer, energetic, optimistic, friendly but brighter and more observant than he at first seems, qualify the novel as a cozy mystery. The two can talk to each other but not to the vicar. Of course they can’t. Why would anyone think they could? Each has a voice perfectly suited to its nature and their overlapping but different views of people and events are fun to listen to.

It’s the vicar, Francis Oughterard, who transforms the novel from a cozy mystery into something stranger and darker. He’s not a man with a vocation. After being demobbed from the Army, an event he greated with relief, he entered the Church because it seemed to be the easiest path open to him. He has learned to fein the currently fashinonable muscular Christianity when absolutely necessary but finds the efffort draining. He’s a naturally solitary man who aspires to nothing more than a quiet life.

At least, that was who I thought he was at the beginning of the book. The more I learned of him, the more I wondered if he was actually a troubled, quietly desperate man whose passivity comes from depression rather than serenity. I found Francis Oughterard to be a very believable character. His role in the novel was what surprised me.

What finally convinced me that I was reading something dark rather than something amusing was the murder scene. It wasn’t a particularly violent scene. The killing was quick. It was the identity of the murderer that threw me.

The cat, of course, didn’t care and the dog, when he figured it out, accepted it as perfectly natural.

I, on the other hand, am still going: THAT’S THE KILLER? NO!

I’d characterise ‘A Load Of Old Bones‘ as a mischievous book. The characters, human and otherwise, feel real. The period setting is evoked with care. The storytelling structure is innovative and delivered with aplomb. I know that there are six Francis Oughterard books and that they have a strong fan base. I have no idea how the series wll move forward from here but I’ve bought the second book, ‘Bones In The Belfry‘ to find out.