A Demon Summer

Publishers Weekly 08/25/2014 Agatha-winner Malliet’s entertaining fourth Max Tudor cozy (after 2013’s Pagan Spring) finds the former MI5 spy turned Anglican priest working up the nerve to tell his bishop that he plans to marry Awena Owen, who holds decidedly untraditional religious views. But before Max and Awena can tie the knot, the bishop dispatches him to the nunnery of Monkbury Abbey, where the sisters produced a fruitcake that sickened the Earl of Lislelivet some months after he visited the abbey. The bishop, who’s worried that the poisoning wasn’t an accident, believes that Max is better suited than the police to gain the sisters’ confidence and learn the truth about the fruitcake. The community, Max learns, is divided between those who want the abbey to have more contact with the outside world and those who don’t. Meanwhile, he has a possibly related crime to solve. The ending with a traditional gathering of the suspects will please Golden Age fans. Agent: Vicky Bijur, Vicky Bijur Literary. (Oct.)