If I had a nickel for 2025 church-set murder mysteries solved by priests portrayed by handsome English actors, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t much, but it’s weird that it happened twice. This show across the pond takes on a cozier, nostalgic vibe, though. Adapting the first part of the Canon Clement mystery series, this show has its priest protagonist free from suspicion, as a possible intended victim. As such, Clement doesn’t go on a crisis of faith that Wake Up Dead Man has, taking on a more affable buddy-cop situation with DS Neil Vanloo. If anything, Clement isn’t as much the focus here– it’s the community that we get to learn and grow alongside with. Nonetheless, like that later film, Murder Before Evensong contemplates the way faith has closed itself off and allowed their teachings to be the basis of prejudice.
In 1980s England, Canon Daniel Clement, the Rector of Champton, finds himself unexpectedly entangled in a murder case when a dead body turns up in the church. When Daniel announces a plan to modernize the church, the parish is suddenly divided. And then a body is found dead at the back of the church. As the police move in and the bodies start piling up, Daniel is the only one who can try and keep his fractured community together... and catch a killer.
