(creator: Emilie Richards)
She has learnt that she is expected to be an "unpaid assistant minister. Also the carrier of messages, the substitute sexton, the extra pair of hands in the church kitchen, and the woman most likely to plunk out hymns on the piano when Esther has the flu. As a bone-deep feminist every part of me knows I should be outraged, but secretly, I enjoy this. It's just that kind of church and town". Luckily she is is terminally curious, and once embarked on a trail is determined to see it through.
Emilie Richards (real name: Emilie McGee, or, according to her husband, Terry McGee) began writing in 1983, after the birth of her fourth child, and as she had a Master's degree in family counseling and experience as a counselor, her first books were romantic novels, then came family stories. After writing over 50 novels, she published her first mystery novel about a minister's wife in 2005. This was the first book in in the Ministry is Murder series but was not intended to be inspirational in the traditional sense, but then she "believes that inspiration can come from many different sources".
As a minister's wife herself, she was well qualified for the task. She has lived in Florida, California, Arkansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and now Northern Virginia, where her husband, Rev Michael R McGee, is Senior Minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church, Arlington, a large, urban church on the East Coast.
She says she has not modelled Aggie's family on her own, although Aggie shares something of her own humor and doggedness. She explains that "Of course her characters and the Consolidated Community Church are nothing at all like the real churches she's been part of and the people she's known there. Who would believe the real stuff?"
Blessed is the Busybody (2005)
Blessed is the Busybody is set in the little town of Emerald Springs, Ohio. A woman's naked body turns up on the front porch of the local Unitarian minister, Rev Ed Sloan-Wilcox, who is then suspected of the crime as he had been counselling her before her death. His job is threatened, particularly by the hostile Gelsey Falowell who was "chairperson of thje Women's Society. In the odd year when she isn't the chairperson, she stands behind whatever pliant mannequin agreed to take the job and tells that unfortunate soul when to speak and how to move."
It is the minister's ever-resourceful wife, Aggie, who has to come to his rescue and it is she who tells the story throughout. She is full of humor, as when she describes her disasterous PowerPoint presentation on the history of her church: "Somehow the multiple images carefully distributed on each side had piled up like a car wreck. One slide after another. Distorted beyond redemption, although I could have sworn that in the middle of one was a photograph of my daughters playing in the sprinkler, followed closely by one of me giving birth. It couldn't be. I went to what was supposed to be the final slide, the opening service of this church year with Ed at the front of the sanctuary and several adorable little boys dressed up and standing beside him to light our chalice. Instead this slide was a photograph of me in my slinkiest black dress, my hair pushed up in one hand, a shoulder strap slipping down my arm, a come-hither look in my eyes."
At first Detective Sergeant Roussos does not seem to appreciate her help: "Stay out of this. I can't say it more clearly." Aggie comments, "I am sure this was good advice. I was equally sure I wasn't going to take it". Instead she gets a job helping in a new bookshop - with a special little room at the back devoted to "adult books". Members of the local churches are furious and protest outside the shop. Someone shouted, "Hell is a four-letter word". "That last slogan actually made ne smile, At least somebody out there had a sense of humor." But some of the more important protestors had reasons of their own for opposing Aggie who was finding out more about the dead woman than they thought safe. Then Gelsey, who also turns out to have had a mysterious past, gets shot.
There are still those in the church who want to get rid of Ed. "The point is," she is told by some church members, "this church has not been the same since your husband arrived". Aggie agreed, "I'll second that. It's been more interesting, more dynamic, and better attended. Of course, you might not know that, since you so seldom come yourselves".
It all works up to a dramatic climax where crooked politicians are foiled, and Aggie gets kidnapped and almost murdered. But the climax includes rather too many pages of explanation from her would-be murderer - and the suspense would be stronger if you weren't absolutely certain that she was going to be rescued. The book is at its best when Aggie's sense of humor is given free rein. Where would a minister's wife be without it?
Let There Be Suspects (2006)
In Let There Be Suspects, Aggie's mom, Junie, has come for a Christmas reunion with Aggie and her two other daughters. Aggie explains, "It's hard not to love my mother ... She may look flighty (she arrives dressed in 'a gorgeous gold caftan with a pair of jeweled Aladdin-type slippers curling out from under them'). Like many creative people her mind is a delicate butterfly that won't light for more than a moment. But Junie's affections are deep and genuine. Although she found she couldn't live with any of the five men she married, she adored them all and probably does to this day."
But, as a surprise, she's also brought along their dreadful former foster sister, Ginger, the ex-TV cookery star who doesn't know anything about cookery, who makes enemies wherever she goes. All this gets the story off to a lively start, with plenty of fun and humor. This is the author's great strength. There are particularly lively descriptions of Aggie's two young daughters, almost teenage Denny, and younger Teddy. It is Teddy who, having been told on the school playground that there was no Santa Claus, is now "skeptical about everything", from the existence of angels to that of God. But when Ginger gets murdered, the less-than-gripping murder plot takes over and it all gets rather less interesting.
Aggie's husband Ed is now in his second year as minister at Emerald Springs. He enjoys getting into theological debates. Last year he used the Cotton Patch version of the New Testament "in which Jesus is born in Gainesville, Georgia. He still gets questions about this". For Aggie too, religion really matters: "Our church is nearly as old as the town of Emerald Springs. Old churches of every demination have a special feel, as if generations of prayers and hymns still echo silently. I think of the people who have come to this sanctuary at times of sorrow and joy, as a step towards moving on to a new phase of their lives. I feel honored to be in their company."
Sister Sid (short for Obsidian), long-time sufferer from Ginger, becomes the main suspect. Aggie (short for Agarte - their mother Junie had chosen their names at a time when she was into precious stones) helps to sort out the murderer, risking her own life in the process. But then there's Detective Roussos ("one of the most attractive men I've ever known, in a brooding Greek fisherman sort of way") to come to the rescue. It all makes an easy read. Pity there had to be a murder to get in the way of the fun!
Emilie Richards has her own attractive website, and her detective, Aggie Sloan-Wilcox, even has her own Ministry is Murder site! Both are recommended.
The books are readily available, new or used. A good source of used books is abebooks.
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