FICTION · PAROCHIAL VICARS
Suzette A. Hill
Also known as: Hill, Suzette A., Hill, Suzette A
Suzette A. Hill was born in Eastbourne, Sussex, in 1941. She is a graduate of Nottingham and Newcastle-upon-Tyne Universities. Hill taught English literature all her professional life. At age sixty-four and retired, she tried her hand at a short story - just to see what writing fiction felt like, and to her surprise a quintet of humorous novels (Reverend Francis Oughterard series) was the result.
Most acclaimed
Bone idle
The Reverend Francis Oughterard is the vicar of St Botolph's and genteel murderer of parishioner Mrs Elizabeth Fotherington. So far eluding arrest (but with fears of imminent exposure), he is in the grip of his blackmailing pal, the shady Nicholas Ingaza, who forces him to steal a valuable figurine of a prancing pig. Naturally the project backfires, plunging the hapless vicar into further skulduggery and leading to embarrassing complications for him and his pompous bishop, Horace Clinker. Once again it is up to the world-weary cat, Maurice and intrepid mongrel, Bouncer, to save the reverend's bacon.
A Load of Old Bones
Dire doings in the Vicarage! A Load Of Old Bones takes us on a nostalgic romp into a 1950s mythical Surrey, where murky deeds and shady chracters abound and where even the animal population is distinctly bizarre! All the Reverend Francis Oughterard had ever wanted was an easy life and a bit of peace and quiet.
Bones in the belfry
Having extricated himself from the embarrassment of murdering his lady parishioner, the Reverend Oughterard is now plunged into the traumas of art theft. Forced by the shady Nicholas Ingaza into being a fence for stolen paintings, he endures the investigative probings of terrifying female novelist and amateur sleuth, Maud Tubbly Pole, hell-bent on portraying him in her next novel. Fearful of exposure in his new role of 'receiver', the Reverend blunders haplessly in a mesh of intrigue and risible deceit, and his antics are commented upon by his cat, the acidic Maurice, and redoubtable bone-grinding ally, the dog Bouncer.