W&N buys three more Canon Clement mysteries by Reverend Richard Coles

W&N has bought more three more Canon Clement mysteries and a Christmas novella by Reverend Richard Coles.

Juliet Annan, publishing director, bought world English-language rights to the works from Tim Bates at PFD, to be published between June 2025 and 2027. The third novel in the Canon Clement series and the first in this new deal, Murder at the Monastery, will be published in June 2024. Orion said there are no more details about the Christmas novella to share at this stage, but said it would likely be published in either 2024 or 2025.

Coles said: “I am delighted to have signed up Canon Clement for three new adventures with W&N. Champton St Mary — already the second most dangerous settlement in England after Midsomer — will be yet again a kaleidoscope of light and shade, as a costume drama shot on location at Champton House ends up with more than a few lines getting cut, then the marriage of the son and heir to title and estate reunites the present Lord and Lady de Floures in the most ill-advised reconciliation since Mr and Mrs Rochester.

“Audrey Clement, DS Neil Vanloo and the Rectory dachshunds Cosmo and Hilda, now with added puppies, continue to make a distinctive contribution to clerical sleuthery. But first, Daniel has taken himself off on retreat to the monastery at Ravenspurn where he was a novice a quarter of a century ago; if he hopes to find peace in its cloister, however, he hopes in vain.”

Annan said: “I am so pleased to be editing and publishing these warm, funny, suspenseful and occasionally scary murder mysteries, full of the most extraordinary and inimitable esoteric detail. They have already brilliantly established Richard Coles as a writer in great new territory for him; I am proud to publish our borderline National Trinket.”