Excerpts Young Adult Read an Excerpt From I, in the Shadows by Tori Bovalino Maybe this is possession; maybe this is truly what it is to be haunted… By Tori Bovalino | Published on December 11, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share Cyrano de Bergerac meets Beetlejuice meets Bottoms in this bewitching, passionate tale of the unlikely alliance between a ghost and the girl who moves into a haunted house. We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from I, in the Shadows, a young adult horror novel by Tori Bovalino, out from Page Street YA on January 13, 2026. There’s a ghost haunting Drew Tarpin’s new room. Liam Orville has been dead for ten months and has no idea how to move on. But the longer he stays, the more likely it is he’ll degrade into an energy consuming husk—which Drew is more concerned about than her grades or her inability to make meaningful connections with other students.Drew is everything Liam never was when he was alive, but they do share some common ground: Drew finds herself hopelessly attracted to—and completely tongue-tied around—Hannah Sullivan, who happens to be Liam’s former best friend.After a run-in with a ghost-eating monster leaves Drew and Liam desperate for answers, they strike up a deal: In return for Drew investigating why Liam is still around, he’ll help her talk to Hannah. But Liam’s time is running out, and if Drew doesn’t help him move on, he risks becoming a monster himself. “The exorcism didn’t work,” I say into the phone, held not-so-securely between my cheek and shoulder as I fumble with my key with one hand and try not to drop the stack of library books teetering in the other. The stack is a mix of things: books on ghosts and ESP, a Bible, a Quran, a Torah, and a beat-up library copy of The Grapes of Wrath. I’m covering my bases here. And to be clear: The Steinbeck is for English class, not exorcisms. I don’t think this is a problem I can solve with breast milk. Finding the house key is a problem, but it’s a problem of my own making. My key ring is cluttered with keys to our old house (which probably no longer work): one to my best friend Andie’s house (definitely works, but is approximately eighty miles away); my car key (works, accessible, rarely used); Dad’s office (works, stolen); and Bee’s bakery (works, also stolen). On the other end of the line, Reece snorts. “I told you it wouldn’t,” they say. I hear a rustle of pages—they’re probably studying. I’m probably interrupting. The last thing they probably want to talk about is ghosts. “You’re the one who told me to handle it myself,” I grumble. “Bro, have you ever seen me do an exorcism?” I drop my keys, groan, and kneel to retrieve them, tipping over the stack of books in the process. At this point, I think it’s brave of me that I don’t curl up on the front porch and give up. It’s one of those days. “Oh,” Reece says, ignorant to my suffering. “How was the Stats test?” “NOPE!” I gather up my books, my keys, and finally find the right one. The door creaks ominously as it opens, but that’s not much of an omen when I already know the place is haunted. And possibly cursed. The sound would tip off Bee and Dad that I’m home, but neither of them are here. If they were, I would not be talking about exorcisms so openly. I would also, unfortunately for all involved, be answering way more questions about the Stats test. “But the ghost,” I say, redirecting with all my might as I drop my backpack and leave the stack of books on the table in the hall. “Do you know of anything else that will help? That will work?” “Not an exorcism.” “Thanks. Genius advice.” Buy the Book I, in the Shadows Tori Bovalino Buy Book I, in the Shadows Tori Bovalino Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget Reece is quiet for a moment. Usually, they’re the one who… well, does anything about ghosts. We can both see them. We’ve both always been able to see them. But I prefer to ignore them, whereas Reece has always taken a more hands-on approach. Unfortunately, due to proximity, there’s no avoiding this particular ghost—and if he does degrade in the way ghosts do, it could lead to a dangerous situation for me if I leave him alone. It’s one of those moments where I feel Reece’s absence keenly. My sibling has a much stronger understanding of ghosts than I do, and also a much better moral code. Even after… well, my entire life, I’m not sure if I’ve mastered the compass points just yet. I hang my keys on the strip of hooks by the door and make my way to the kitchen, the wooden floorboards creaking with every step. The house itself is really not that old. Our last place was an early nineteenth-century farmhouse. This house is bright, airy, and open-concept downstairs with big rooms and good closets upstairs. It’s everything Bee and Dad always wanted.  We’ve only been here for about a month, so I’m in that weird phase in which everything about it is pseudo-familiar: the creaking of the floors in every room, worst on the stairs; the scratching of the trees against the windows at night; the far-off whistle of the trains as they pass through, headed for Ohio or across Pennsylvania. Oh, yeah. And the fucking ghost. He’s not here as I pull down a box of cereal, hop up on the counter, and eat it dry by the handful, as Reece still sighs and mutters on the line. The ghost tends to prefer my bedroom (it’s very inconvenient for both of us), which leads me to believe that it was once his bedroom. (You don’t have to tell me I’m a genius. When it comes to ghostbusting, I am a top student.) (I can’t say the same for real school.) But, back to the bedroom thing. To be clear, he’s not a creeper ghost, from what I can tell. He doesn’t watch me change, or leer, or do anything else that one would suspect of a semi-visible teenage boy now sharing a bedroom with a fully visible teenage girl. Who knows. Maybe he’s queer too. Maybe he likes running. Maybe he also is kind of bad at school. Maybe, if we were living in the same timeline, any of those things would be in the center of our little Venn diagram. Maybe, we would even be friends. Finally, Reece sighs. “I wouldn’t usually recommend this,” they say, their tone taking on a hint of the dubiousness, “but have you tried talking to him?” Now, it’s my turn to snort. Unfortunately, I do it around a mouthful of dry Cheerios, which leads to a lot of coughing and sputtering, which lessens the effect when I say, “Isn’t that breaking, like, Reece Tarpin’s Rule Number One of Ghost Management?” “Drew—” Reece starts. “Maybe Rule One is ‘do not bang a ghost,’” I speculate, this time with less choking on Cheerios. “Drew—” “Or ‘no kissing ghosts?’ But I’m pretty sure you broke that one with—” “ANDREA PENELOPE TARPIN,” Reece shouts. “DO YOU WANT MY HELP OR NOT?” I press my lips together. Stop swinging my feet. Set the cereal box down. “…Yes.” Reece sighs, and I can just imagine them pinching the bridge of their nose, eyes closed, trying to tamp down the frustration. I cause this expression a lot, so the image of it comes easily—along with that fierce ache of missing them. Reece is a freshman in college at Boston University, and they moved at the end of the summer, a couple of weeks before Dad and Bee and me relocated here. I’m still not used to the emptiness of my life without Reece’s constant presence—and Reece’s constant willingness to step in and take the lead on anything ghostly. But let’s get one thing straight: I am not asking for Reece’s help because I’m afraid of this ghost, okay? Fear has nothing to do with it. I just don’t like him, and I don’t want him in my room, and I am a growing girl, and I should be allowed my space and privacy. Plus, he’s very judgmental, which I can tell because he makes weird faces at me at night when I’m doing my ab routine. I find it very disruptive. And when Reece is in charge, they just… usually go away on their own. Or with gentle convincing from light rituals. They are not usually this persistent. Enter: Reece. “I’m video-calling you,” Reece says, resigned. “Switch over.” I pull the phone from my face and accept the video request. Reece’s face floats up, too close for a moment, their nose and septum piercing and top lip swimming on my screen before they back up. I scan over their freckles and shorn red hair—the shock of copper is the only thing we share between us that Dad does not also have—before focusing in on their brown eyes, still a bit tired. “Take me to the ghost.” “You won’t be able to—” “Just do it, mmkay? You’re the one who wanted my help.” I sigh, but I take Reece with me upstairs. I also nearly die on the way when I trip over my backpack, discarded on the first step, and I am annoyed to find that, for a brief moment, I understand why Dad is always getting on my case to hang it up or put it in my room. It’s the worst kind of self-betrayal to find that I agree with my parents’ nagging, even for a second. Reece doesn’t say anything until we’re in my room with the door shut behind us. Then, they shout, scaring me out of my skin: “HEY GHOSTIE. IT’S DREW’S BIG SIBLING. SQUARE UP.” “Reece,” I say, aghast. But something in it works. My eyes snap to a corner, where the bed is pushed against the wall: For the barest moment, the air shimmers, and then the boy appears. He’s sitting on the bed, back against the wall, one knee tented, arm thrown over it. He died wearing jeans and a short-sleeved top with three buttons at the throat, all open. He’s white, I think, with dark hair and brown eyes and a beaky nose keeping up his glasses. He looks a little nerdy but also kind of nice—not the sort of kid you’d think of dying at seventeen or eighteen or whatever age he was when he kicked it. He also looks mega bored. I would probably feel the same, if I were dead for an indeterminate amount of time and unable to communicate with the living. I turn the phone around. I’m not sure if Reece can see him over the video call, but it doesn’t much matter. Reece is good at playing things off, and they know the ghost is there. If I can see it, of course it’s there. The thing is, I did want to solve this on my own. All our lives, Reece has been the one who cared more about ghosts (see: when the going gets tough, I get avoiding) and knew how to deal with them. And when they lived with us, it was easy to let that be their thing, to let every little issue fall under Reece’s remit. But Reece is in Massachusetts, and I doubt they’ll be coming back—in the last few weeks, I’ve watched them talk about home less and less as they’ve made new friends and gotten used to Boston. I can’t even blame them. The world is a bit shit right now— I’m proud they’re finding what space they can, carving safety and protection into it. Either way, I thought that working through the ghost issue would make us closer. Bridge that gap that’s been building between us since Reece left. But they told me to figure it out, and I—well. I reached for the exorcism when I probably shouldn’t have. But in my defense, it’s actually very creepy to share space with a ghost. They don’t really knock when they want to come in— right now, the ghost and I can’t communicate at all, which means he spends his sentient hours staring at me from the corner like I kicked his puppy. Reece is good at making them go away, solving their problems and cutting their ties to the mortal world before sending them peacefully into the afterlife. Fixing the mess before wellmannered ghosts degrade into angry husks. I am patently not, and that’s what’s getting me into trouble. And yes, maybe I did go straight for an exorcism on purpose—because if I failed, I knew that Reece would have no choice but to help me. Selfish? Possibly. I just… I really miss them. This might be a shitty bonding experience, but it’s better than nothing. “Ready to do this, Dree?” Reece asks me. I press my lips together, glaring at the ghost so he doesn’t get any ideas. Reece is the only one who calls me Dree (and the only one who is allowed)—a shortening for Andrea, which annoys me. Everyone else calls me Drew, because my best friend, another Andrea, took Andie first. “Ready as I’ll ever be,” I grumble. The ghost cocks an eyebrow. He doesn’t look pleased, either, but that might have something to do with the failed exorcism that happened last time I saw him. Yeah, I doubt he’s forgiven me for that yet. “Look,” I say, trying to soften my voice a bit. “I’m sorry about… the whole holy water thing. I am just trying to help you move on, okay?” He frowns, unconvinced. “Just do it,” Reece mutters on the line. I stick out a hand. If he comes forward, touches me, then I can bring him back into corporeality. Meld my spirit to his, even temporarily. And I’ll be able to hear him properly, to know what he wants. Reece is really good at it. They can listen to a ghost, figure out what they want, and get them moving on in record speed. It would never take my sibling three weeks to deal with a ghost. But I hate the squidginess of it, the vulnerability. Reece taught me how to do this when I was ten, and I’ve only done it a couple of times since then. When you open yourself to a ghost, you always take a bit of them, too—and I hate knowing those deaths, feeling the shattered fractals of their memories, and not being able to put them down. Not being able to forget them, when the ghosts do move on. Sure, they don’t become husks, the angry remnants of a soul left behind. But I keep the other half of memories no one else will ever share: the sweet bite of an apple in springtime eighty years ago, and the first kiss with someone’s wife, and the feeling of dirt in my hand as someone buried their mother, and the taste of blood in my mouth as someone wrecked a car. It’s all there, still mine, even though they were never really my memories to begin with. He regards the hand, then looks up at me. I know his name— when I moved in, small town that this is, everyone was stepping over themselves to tell me about the dead kid who lived here before—but I don’t want to think it now, when he could be in my brain soon. “It will help,” I say. “I’ll stop trying to get rid of you.” He tilts his head, a question there. He stopped trying to talk to me after the first week, when it was clear I couldn’t hear. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped talking at him. Small things— announcing my presence when I come in, or reminding him that I can’t hear him, or apologizing for failing at exorcisms. “And if she can’t,” Reece says, “I might be able to.” He looks doubtful, but he shifts forward. Gets off the bed. He doesn’t need to walk, one foot in front of the other, but he does. He could just float, or appear wherever he needs to go, but I learned early on that he’s not very good at being a ghost. “I won’t hurt you,” I say. He rolls his eyes. Takes my hand. I take a deep breath, reaching for not just his hand, but the shadow of his soul still here on this mortal plane. It’s like surfacing from underwater, bringing him back into being. Like tasting every second of his seventeen years, two months, twenty-two days, eight hours, seventeen minutes, and eight seconds on my tongue, all those vague reminders of who he is hitting all at once—and I can’t hold back his name anymore. “You can’t hurt me,” the ghost of Liam Orville says. “I’m already dead.” Excerpted from I, in the Shadows, copyright © 2025 by Tori Bovalino. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>I, in the Shadows</i> by Tori Bovalino appeared first on Reactor.

News Supergirl The First Supergirl Trailer Is… Odd Don’t hurt the dog!!! Even though he’s CGI. By Molly Templeton | Published on December 11, 2025 Screenshot: DC Studios Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: DC Studios Our introduction to the latest version of Kara Zor-El came at the end of Superman, where she stumbled into the Fortress of Solitude to reclaim her feisty pet. Kara gets her own movie next summer, and we finally have our first look at it—and an odd look it is. This Kara (Milly Alcock) is walking the Jessica Jones/Yelena Belova/comic-book-Carol Danvers path of being a messy drinker (can we not find any other way to let superheroic women be prickly?) with an attitude. She did see her whole world get destroyed, so the attitude is certainly justified. When she meets a young girl on a quest for vengeance, she seems to find something to do with her super-life. Or, as the synopsis puts it: “When an unexpected and ruthless adversary strikes too close to home, Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl, reluctantly joins forces with an unlikely companion on an epic, interstellar journey of vengeance and justice.” Supergirl seems to be following its source material quite closely. The movie is based on the comic series Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow by Tom King and Bilquis Everly, in which Kara reluctantly teams up with Ruthye Marye Knoll (played here by Eve Ridley) whose father has been murdered by a fellow named Krem of the Yellow Hills (played by Matthias Schoenaerts). But there are a few beats outside the comic, including the brief appearance of Lobo (Jason Momoa), who you will literally miss if you blink. The movie also stars David Krumholtz (as Zor-El) and Emily Beecham (as Alura In-Ze). And what a strange movie it looks to be: Spunky and rebellious in character, but visually brown and dark. The use of Blondie’s “Call Me” is entirely in keeping with James Gunn’s DC universe, but it fits neither the visual vibe nor the overall tone. This trailer is one big mash-up that doesn’t quite land—though Alcock seems delightful. Supergirl is directed by Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya; Cruella) from a screenplay by Ana Nogueira (The Vampire Diaries, The Blacklist). It’s in theaters June 26, 2026.[end-mark] The post The First <i>Supergirl</i> Trailer Is… Odd appeared first on Reactor.

Books Horror Highlights Ancient Gods and Arachnids: Horror Highlights for December 2025 Add a little horror to your holiday reading list! By Emily C. Hughes | Published on December 11, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share While December is a slow month for publishing as a whole, and especially for horror publishing, you’d be a fool not to keep an eye on the month’s new books, lest they sneak up behind you in a dark alley. Here are five I’m particularly excited about. Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher (Dec 1, 47north) Any new T. Kingfisher horror book pole-vaults to the top of my TBR pile (I like her fantasy very much as well, but horror always takes priority). This novella follows Selena, a woman fleeing a bad living situation for her late aunt’s desert home. Along with her dog, Copper, Selena starts to adapt to desert life—meeting her neighbors, making friends, and adjusting to a completely new ecosystem. But there’s something watching from the underbrush: an ancient god known as Snake-Eater. And it wants something from Selena—something her aunt promised it. One thing Kingfisher does especially well is writing the natural world in a way that’s reverent but not overly romantic—I loved her descriptions of the Appalachian woods in The Twisted Ones, and I can’t wait to see what she does with a whole new biome here. Plus, as with most Kingfisher novels, readers can expect an exceedingly charming cast of characters and a very, very good dog. Down Came the Spiders by Ally Russell (Dec 2, Scholastic) Now that I’m an adult, I have a healthy respect for spiders, even if I’d prefer they keep their distance. As a kid, however, I was significantly less chill about anything with eight legs. Andi, a spider-obsessed sixth grader, goes to a party hoping to get a good look at the host’s dad’s spider collection—and she gets way more than she bargained for. Soon, Andi and her friends are trying desperately to evade a veritable spider invasion, and the adults are nowhere to be found. It’s up to Andi to untangle this web. Nobody’s writing better horror for middle grade readers than Russell, and this one’s perfect for arachnophobes and -philes of all ages. Dark Sisters by Kristi DeMeester (Dec 9, St. Martin’s) DeMeester’s fiction is often concerned with forces that constrain women’s lives, and that’s certainly the case with her third novel. Dark Sisters is told across three timelines: in 1750, Anne, a healer fleeing accusations of witchcraft, starts a small settlement deep in the forest around a powerful, ancient tree. In the 1950s, Anne’s descendant Mary feels trapped in her existence as a housewife until she meets a woman who brings her to life again. And in 2007, Mary’s granddaughter Camilla, only daughter of the strict town preacher, is determined to unravel the mysterious power controlling the town—one that’s tied to the ancient tree at its heart. If you’re a fan of religious horror, feminist horror, cults, and/or witches, this one’s for you.  Midnight Somewhere by Johnny Compton (Dec 9, Blackstone) I consider it a gift when an author I like releases a short story collection—it’s like a tasting menu of the inside of their brain (not to torture a metaphor or anything). Compton’s 2023 debut novel The Spite House haunted me, and so I’m eagerly anticipating Midnight Somewhere, which features twenty one stories that span genres and themes. Of note: “The Merge Monster Incident: One Year Later,” about a roller coaster that comes to life and disappears with all its riders still aboard; “I Caught a Ghost in My Eye,” about, well, a haunted eye; and  “Doctor Bad Eyes is at the Top of the Stairs Again,” about a mother facing down the ghost who keeps scaring her kids. The Writhing, Verdant End by Corey Farrenkopf, Tiffany Morris, & Eric Raglin (Dec 9, Cursed Morsels) All three of these authors are making a name for themselves in the ecohorror space—Morris’ Green Fuse Burning, Farrenkopf’s Haunted Ecologies, and Raglin’s Extinction Hymns all come highly recommended (to you, by me). This volume contains new novellas from Farrenkopf and Raglin and several new short stories from Morris: tales of kudzu cities, unholy mutations, birds, bees, the Flower Man, and a birding vacation that glimmers with the promise of resurrecting an extinct species—at great cost. It never gets easier choosing just a few books to highlight from the many released each month—to see the full list of December’s new horror books and beyond, head over to my website.[end-mark] News and Notes The 2026 new horror list: The 2026 horror list is live! Head over to Read Jump Scares to start building your TBR for next year—we’ll have new books from Paul Tremblay, Ronald Malfi, Bethany C. Morrow, Gemma Amor, Monika Kim, V. Castro, Catriona Ward, Clay McLeod Chapman, Sarah Gailey, Nick Cutter, Daniel Kraus, Eric LaRocca, CJ Leede, Mónica Ojeda, Nat Cassidy, Adam Nevill, Philip Fracassi, Gwendolyn Kiste, Kylie Lee Baker, Cynthia Pelayo, and so many more. As always, I’ll keep updating the list throughout the year (many titles for fall and winter 2026 haven’t quite been announced yet at this point), and if you see that I’ve missed something, please tell me about it here! The year in horror: I picked my three favorites of the year for Talking Scared’s year-end State of the Horror Nation episode, and now I want to know: what were the best horror books you read in 2025? The post Ancient Gods and Arachnids: Horror Highlights for December 2025 appeared first on Reactor.

News 28 Years Later Sony Greenlights Third 28 Years Later Movie as The Bone Temple Earns Rave Reactions And a familiar face from the first film is likely to star By Molly Templeton | Published on December 11, 2025 Screenshot: Sony Pictures Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: Sony Pictures The 28 Years Later films have been arriving at an impressive rate: the first film was released just six months ago, while the second one, The Bone Temple, is due in January. A third film was likely but not definite, but Deadline has the news that Sony Pictures has made its decision to proceed with the third film “following the electric fan reaction from recent screenings of the second film.” The Hollywood Reporter has a roundup of social media responses to early screenings of The Bone Temple; responses include words like “brilliant” and “audacious.” Where 28 Years Later was directed by Danny Boyle, who directed the original 28 Days Later, Nia DaCosta took the helm for The Bone Temple. The film stars Ralph Fiennes as Dr. Ian Kelson, who is looking for a cure for the virus, and Alfie Williams as Spike, who joins a gang led by Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell). Cillian Murphy, who starred in 28 Days Later, returns to the role of Jim, though he told the Observer that he only appears in The Bone Temple “for a little bit.” That little bit, though, positions him as a main character in the third film. According to Deadline, writer Alex Garland is currently working on the unnamed third film, while Murphy is “in talks” to star. Boyle has previously said that he’d like to direct the third, unnamed film in the trilogy, and really, who’s going to turn him down? 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple premieres January 16th, 2026.[end-mark] The post Sony Greenlights Third <i>28 Years Later</i> Movie as <i>The Bone Temple</i> Earns Rave Reactions appeared first on Reactor.

Lists Mysteries An Infallible Ranking of Crime-Solving Clergy There’s a surprising amount of crossover between sleuthing and pastoral care. By Leah Schnelbach | Published on December 11, 2025 Credit: Netflix Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Netflix I am a simple person: Rian Johnson releases a new Benoit Blanc mystery, and I see it as often as possible during its theatrical window, and then stream it on Netflix. Wake Up Dead Man is one of my favorite films of the year, and its main character—Father Jud Duplenticy—has inspired me to round up some of the best holy sleuths I could find. As always this is subjective. Be assured that Father Jud is #1 in my heart if not on this list. #15. Father Michael William Logan — I Confess! This is a Hitchcock movie in which Montgomery Clift plays a young hot priest in Quebec City who is framed for murder by his church’s groundskeeper. I’m including it here because Father Michael William Logan becomes very glancingly involved in the investigation of the murder before he himself is too much of a suspect. I expected a taut thriller, but this movie is a bit bumpy—the plot is extremely convoluted, there are multiple subplots about the priest’s former girlfriend and blackmail, so there are only a few sections that really dig into what to me is the most interesting part: since the groundkeeper confessed his murder, the priest is bound by the seal of the confession and can’t clear his own name. There is one sequence that I think really takes the film to the level it needed, where Clift wanders through Quebec City framed by religious iconography. He starts outside a cemetery. Later, as he walks up a hill, Hitchcock shoots him from across the street, where there’s a statue of Jesus carrying the cross up Golgotha flanked by Roman soldiers. A few minutes later, Clift seeks refuge in a different church, walks in, and fixes his eyes on the crucifix which is, after all, a graphic record of a body broken by state violence. There’s no escape for him, and he knows that. #14. Assorted Priests — Death in Holy Orders by P.D. James Fathers Martin, Sebastian, Peregrine, and John don’t actually do too much investigating in P.D. James novel Death in the Holy Orders, as they leave most of it to DCI Adam Dalgliesh. But they do try to assist as they can. And then, in the adaptation of the book for the Channel 5 series Dalgliesh, Father Martin is cut out entirely and his actions divided among the other three. But I still wanted to include them as the book itself is an interesting take on a religious mystery. In both the book and television versions, DCI Dalgliesh is the son of a rector with “a stubborn streak of rationality”, whose history with religion bubbles under the surface of his stoic exterior. While the plot is pretty convoluted, the book gets into some interesting shades between the Church of England, starker Protestantism, and Anglo-Catholicism, but in both cases I think the story could have done with a bit more theology and church details to hammer home how St. Anselm’s, the site of the murder(s), was a unique site for the crimes that occur, and how those crimes would have affected the faculty and students’ faith and livelihoods. #13. Lady Lupin — Who Killed the Curate? by Joan Coggins Lady Lupin is the bubbly, adorable, scatterbrained new wife of Canon Andrew Hastings. I have to assume she’s a slight parody of Agatha Christie’s Griselda Clement (who appears a little further up the list), as she’s a gorgeous blonde 21-year-old, straight out of London society, who is about as unprepared for the vicarage as anyone could be. But, on the night her longterm society boyfriend was going to propose, she met the 38-years-old, silvering-at-the-temples Canon Hastings at a dinner, and by the end of the night the two were completely twitterpated. When Andrew’s pompous young curate, Andrew Young, dies from poison on Christmas Eve (so inconvenient!) Loops takes it upon herself to investigate, with help from her London friends Duds and Tommy, and Andrew’s nephew Jack. Lupin is… well, now, in our technology-addled world, her miniscule attention span and talent for non-sequitur would seem perfectly normal, but at the time author Joan Coggins was writing a gentle parody of un-upperclass woman, kindhearted, but flighty and always focused on exactly the wrong details—until those details turn out to be useful in a murder investigation. It’s easier to just show you what we’re dealing with, so here’s a brief excerpt of Lupin trying to speak with her nephew about a certain Miss Oliver, who might be a murder suspect: “She is a tiresome woman, I hate people who wriggle, and she was rather nasty about June and Diana.”“Why?” asked Jack sharply.“I don’t know, I’m sure. I suppose she was born like it. Where was I?”“You didn’t say, but I gather it was somewhere with Miss Oliver.”“Oh yes, so I was, unfortunately. We were in my sitting room. I know we were there because of the housekeeping money.”“What housekeeping money?”“The money that was stolen, of course.”“You never said anything about any money being stolen.”“Well, I suppose I had forgotten. One can’t think of everything. There was Duds cutting her hair off after telling me she had grown it, and then the carol service, and now poor Mr. Young being dead. It would seem heartless to begrudge ten pounds.” The whole book is like this! It’s great! Lupin doesn’t so much help solve the case, as much as free associate her way down the right path, so she can’t be too high on the list. #12. Merrily Watkins — Midwinter of the Spirit Here again, I’ve seen the ITV adaptation, and haven’t yet read Phil Rickman’s books. Merrily Watkins (Anna Maxwell Martin) was a promising character in an interesting premise, but the execution left her fairly low on this list. She’s already an Anglican minister, recently widowed and trying to navigate her relationship with her daughter, who’s grieving much more than she appears to be. As the series opens, she’s training to become a Deliverance Minister, the Anglican Church’s somewhat more empathetic and holistic take on the role of exorcist. The show shifts in tone between suspense, family drama, and occasionally straight-up supernatural horror. The problem is that Merrily waffles constantly about whether she should even be a Deliverance Minister. (Her “mentor”, a Minister named Huw Owen [David Threlfall], explicitly tells her she’s not cut out for it.) She allows a malevolent spirit to get its hooks in her immediately, and then ends up helping to investigate a series of deaths said spirit may have caused. She doesn’t make any friends in the police force, because the two police officers we deal with walk Merrily into the site of a horrifying occult ritual, complete with corpse and a plethora of anti-Christian imagery, with no warning whatsoever, and she’s utterly traumatized. They don’t seem to have any reason to do this, she isn’t a regular consultant. As the show continues she develops a sort of demonic stigmata (which, cool), and seems possessed at time. Her daughter gets caught up in the occult… cult… and for obvious reasons Merrily devotes more time to that than the case, so a local social worker and Merrily’s mentor end up doing far more of the investigating than she does, although she does come back into the investigation toward the end. But on top of that, aside from the one time when she possible got possessed by an evil spirit during an attempted  Deliverance, we don’t really get to see the inner workings of Deliverance Ministry, and we never see Merrily actually vicar-ing. OH and the cops continue to suck and take her to a second occult site with no warning, but she handles it better the second time. But also, why? One other thing I found interesting—there is a cross-shaped clean spot on the wall above Merrily’s bed, which the show doesn’t address, but which seemed fairly reminiscent of the similar cross-shaped clean spot on the wall of Monsignor Jefferson Wicks’ church in Wake Up Dead Man.    #11. Father Robert Koesler — The Rosary Murders Much as in I Confess!, the main drama engine here (aside from, y’know, murder) is the seal of confession. The murderer confesses to the murders, and Father Robert Koeslar (Donald Sutherland) is then unable to go to the police for protection, because telling them anything would break the seal. He tries to solve the mystery on his own, hoping to get the man to turn himself in (also as in I Confess!) but as the murderer has legitimate beef with the Catholic Church, there’s no way he’ll be so obliging. The crime directly involves priests whom Koeslar knows, and the murderer plants replicas of his dead daughter’s black rosary on each victim, ratcheting up the psychological torment for the embattled priest, who was already having doubts about continuing in his line of work. Father Koeslar does a decent job of tracking down clues, and in the end does far more to solve the mystery than any of the police do, or the journalist who shows up to do research/tempt him away from his vocation. (A really tired trope that does NOT turn up in Wake Up Dead Man!) In the end, the whole crime turns on the confession, though, and the one time Sutherland tries to hint to his superior that something’s up the man harshly rebukes him. Ultimately while it’s not always successful as a sexy thriller, the film becomes a really interesting meditation on a kind of spiritual doom, and Father Loesar proves pretty good at amateur sleuthing. Also? A pre-teen Jack White makes an appearance as an altar server! #10. Father Jud Duplenticy — Wake Up Dead Man This blurb is short because until Wake Up Dead Man hits Netflix this Friday, I am not spoiling a single thing about this movie! I will say, however, that Father Jud Duplenticy is my favorite film character of the year. For a while, he proves to be an excellent natural detective. He notices clues—even a few that elude the great Benoit Blanc—connects dots, and draws on his deep knowledge of his parishioners to weigh their potential murdery-ness. But the reason I love this movie so much is that at a certain point he quits playing detective to re-focus on his calling as a priest. And ALSO without spoiling anything, as in a few of these mysteries, the rite of confession proves pivotal to the mystery, and to Jud’s arc as a person, as does the concept of grace. Jud would have been an excellent sleuth, but I’m glad he picked the career path he’s on. #9. Canon Clement — Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie I sometimes forget that Agatha Christie is hilarious. But this book is full of zingers, deadpan wit, and smirking asides. Canon Clement is a delightful narrator, a middle-aged reverend who claims to be utterly baffled by his decision to propose to his wife, the wild, funny, entirely unsuitable Griselda. Griselda can neither cook, nor manage a household, and revels in the kind of snark that is unbecoming to a vicar’s wife—and I can only assume she inspired the aforementioned Lady Lupin. But it’s clear that Canon Clement is absolutely besotted with her, and that’s our first clue that Clement might be slightly unreliable as he describes his small parish. What’s extra fun is that as the book goes along, we get the increasing sense of Clement as a person—welcoming, non-judgmental, but with a streak of moral belief that comes out in a fiery sermon that leads straight into the book’s climax. The only reason he’s so low on the list is that, well, he’s trying to play amateur sleuth in a book that has Miss freaking Marple in it. She walks into a tea at the vicarage with seven main suspects already in mind (he’s shocked at the number) and then spends the book on the edges of the story, working through possibilities, observing human nature, and finally solving the whole thing with just enough time to help the police apprehend those responsible, and hopefully, save the life of a hapless victim. While Clement is the narrator, and a fantastic one, Miss Marple is the star. #8. Father Dowling & Sister Steve — The Father Dowling Mysteries Two things about Father Dowling Mysteries before I go any further: one episode features a disappearing dead body that a news team tries to spin into a miracle, much like Wake Up Dead Man; Father Dowling is threatened with reassignment to Alaska if he doesn’t cut out all the sleuthing, which leads me to believe that Paolo Sorrentino is a fan of the show. Now as for why Fr Dowling and Sr. Steve are here—Dowling is a good snooper. He’s great at finding tiny clues and noticing things. Sister Steve, because of her rough childhood, is good at whatever the narrative needs her to be, whether it’s being a flair bartender, picking locks, or hotwiring tractors—but rest assured she also gets super upset at the sight of a dead body, so the audience can be reassured that she’s really a sensitive girl under that tough wisecracking exterior. However, Dowling also uses his collar to straight up lie to people, to let people make assumptions that he can leverage  assume that he’s there for innocent reasons when he’s not, and there’s a fair streak of “1980s-1990s Television Miracles”—when the narrative shows us that God or whatever is micromanaging things to the extent the a phone rings just when a baddie is about to find our holy sleuths, or illicit lovers decide to hit pause on their mutual seduction just long enough for the hidden nun to escape. Father Dowling also has an evil twin brother, but to be fair every TV character had an evil twin back then.   #7. Canon Daniel Clement — Murder Before Evensong by Rev. Richard Coles The Canon Clement mysteries are written by an actual vicar, The Reverend Richard Coles, who used to be in Bronski Beat, had a hit single with The Communards (he the one on the synth), and is one of the inspirations for Tom Hollander and James Wood’s excellent BBC series, Rev. Canon Clement is a pretty good sleuth, the fun of these books is watching him balance that work against the constant maintenance of the parish, his care for his parishioners (be they murderers or no), and his own attempts have an actual spiritual life—a thing that is often not mentioned AT ALL in these kinds of books. (It’s also, obviously, a riff on Agatha Christie’s A Murder at the Vicarage, with a singular Canon Clement rather than Christie’s Canon Clements.) Where book Canon Clement seems mild-mannered and a bit hapless, in the TV adaptation (which stars Matthew Lewis as the reverend) Canon Clement is obviously reeling from family upheaval, and resentful of his mother, his bishop, and certain members of his flock. This makes the drama hit a bit harder as he tries to be a good pastor even when he feels no one appreciates it. The show also leans much more into the cultural milieu of 1988, as Canon Clements ministers to AIDs patients even though that scandalizes some people in his parish, and his bishop tries to discourage it as political activism rather than basic ministry. The fact that one of the main characters is gay is made more central to the drama, and clearly plays off the fact that Canon Clements is battling homophobia. In both cases, he takes to detective work immediately, and pieces together clues both on and his own and in tandem with Detective Sergeant Neil Vanloo, who tries to turn him into a sort of de facto assistant before realizing that their goals are not quite aligned. The initial murder is surprisingly grisly, with Canon Clement finding a body in his church because his two adorable dachshunds are, er, walking around in, and licking, the victim’s blood, and Clement reveals his own moral core by repeatedly affirming his hope that the killer finds forgiveness just as the town as a whole finds closure. But he gets this spot because in both the book and the TV adaptation, he’s the one who figures out key pieces in the mystery, even before the stalwart DS Vanloo. #6. Reverend Sydney Chambers — Grantchester Oh, Sydney Chambers. Now I have not read James Runcie’s book series yet (I understand they take a drastically different path) and I have not watched the two vicars who succeed Sydney in his post. But in Series 1-4 of the show, Sydney is a good natural detective who gets into the game because he’s unsatisfied by his life as a vicar. For whatever reason, his flashbacks to his WWII service have gotten worse, and he craves distraction—or, I should say, a new distraction, to add to the jazz, whiskey, and revolving door of women that are already distracting him. It’s astonishing that he ever finishes a sermon. After being glancingly involved with a police investigation, he pitches himself to grizzled, cynical Detective Inspector Geordie Keating as a sort of assistant: between his collar and his charm, he can get people to tell him things they won’t tell anyone else. Geordie is skeptical but tries it, and soon Sydney is solving cases alongside him all the time. Where in a lot of these stories, confession is seen as absolutely sacrosanct, and the priest can’t divulge anything their told even at the risk of their own life or freedom, Sydney pops his collar on and listens really hard, and you soon start to wonder If Geordie ever solved any crimes before he acquired his own personal vicar.   The reason Sydney is so high on the list is because when his season are at their best, they dig into the basic clash between someone who’s supposed to help the guilty find reconciliation with God and society, and someone who’s supposed to catch the guilty and hand them over to a secular justice system. A good example of this is threaded through Series Two. Sydney and Geordie are at loggerheads because a young man is set to be executed for causing the death of a school friend. Geordie thinks executing the boy will be “justice”, while Sydney thinks it’s the state taking “vengeance” after a tragedy. The two men argue over it repeatedly, but come back together when Geordie is implicated in a (really great) locked room murder that he and Sydney solve together. But their sense of unity is immediately shattered when the young man is given his execution date, Sydney goes with him to witness his death at the gallows, and Geordie then approaches Sydney at his church ostensibly to invite him for a drink, but really to needle him about why he aways sides with the “bad ones”. This leads to a knock-down fight that turns the altar into a brawltar It perfectly exemplifies what this weird subgenre can do, interrogating the idea of justice, asking whether forgiveness is possible, setting the conversation up between a person whose job is just…religion, and one whose job is policing. But then it ends with Sydney’s now-pregnant ex-girlfriend turning up to say she’s left her husband and has nowhere else to go and I’m like GET BACK TO THE ETHICS. UGH this show. #5. Reverend Clare Fergusson — In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming Clare Fergusson is an ex-Army helicopter pilot who came to the priesthood in her early 30s. In her first real posting, she’s now the first female Episcopal priest of Millers Kill, an upstate New York town that, like a lot of towns in America, is seeing a divide between the corporate people who can afford picturesque Americana, and the families who are falling through the cracks each time another mill or factory closes. Reverend Fergusson’s new parish is run by a well-heeled board who are clearly in the former camp, and clearly are clearly planning to keep her on a tight leash. But then a poor mother abandons a baby on the church doorstep, and Clare realizes she’s going to have to fight back to include people from all sides of the tracks. In an effort to get to know the town, she goes out on patrol with police chief Russ Van Alstyne, and almost immediately finds a dead body. Over the rest of the book, she applies her empathy and listening skills to find clues that Russ would never spot, and the two essentially work the case in parallel lines, with, once again, the seal of confession causing one or two stumbling blocks along the way, Over the course of the series, Clare and Russ have to deal with their attraction to each other—which is first complicated by the then-married Russ finding out that Episcopal priest are not, in fact, celibate—Clare has to cope with conservative higher-ups, and the two of them deal with various “controversial” issues in a small town—teen motherhood, generational poverty, immigrant communities, gay-bashing—with Clare being the voice of inclusion and good faith, and Russ sometimes being more close-minded. But the series lets them argue it out, and points out Clare’s occasional naivety as well as Russ’ need to be more flexible. #4. Rabbi David Small — The Rabbi Small Mysteries by Harry Kemelman The blurb on one of Harry Kemelman’s David Small Mysteries goes as such: “Why is this Rabbi different from all other rabbis? Because he’s a detective.” Like several of the other clergypeople on this list, Rabbi David Small ends up investigating a murder because he wakes up a suspect. When a murdered girl is found in the yard next to his Temple, and her handbag is found in his car, he gradually works through his congregation, and much of the small town of Barnard’s Crossing, Massachusetts, learning everything he can about her life to try to understand its ending. Along the way he forms a friendship with Police Chief Hugh Lanigan and resolves half a dozen skirmishes within his congregation. But the best bit of the first book, for me, is when Rabbi Small and his wife drop in on Chief Lanigan and his wife, and the quartet spend a quiet afternoon discussing religion over Tom Collinses. (This is while Rabbi Small is still a major suspect, by the way.) Again and again Kemelman stops the plots for human moments, for arguments between neighbors, for inside jokes and longstanding feuds, until the reader understands just how horrible the crimes have been, to disrupt the vibrant life unfolding in Barnard’s Crossing. Rabbi Small applies his Talmudic training and analytical mind equally to every problem, with an attention to granular detail that makes him one of the best sleuths on the list. #3. Brother Cadfael — Cadfael Cadfael takes small town murder mystery tropes and sends them back to a medieval village, complete with high society family drama (except sometimes it’s a literal King), plucky assistants (novitiates) and even a lovelorn, morally ambiguous policeman in the form of “deputy sheriff” Hugh Beringar. Brother Cadfael himself is a former Crusader, who has seen so much of the world and its evils that his view on society sometimes seem more 1990s than 1290s. Derek Jacobi is, obviously, fantastic. Cadfael uses his deep knowledge of plants and herbs to solve crimes. Cadfael notices everything. He uses his status as a Benedictine Brother to fade into the background, to appear harmless, to allow people to think he’s a naive, innocent man. But as fa former professional soldier, he’s seen human nature at its worst and at its most noble, and he can spot lies from a buttress away. He and the other brothers are forever finding bodies in the river, or having their Compline singing interrupted by people bursting through the church doors with news of murder, the medieval townsfolk seem surprisingly OK with modern procedural work, and it’s great. #2. Father Brown — Father Brown Mysteries by G.K. Chesterton Father Brown uses his observation, keen knowledge of human nature, and other peoples’ underestimation of him to solve crimes. Generally the police don’t want his help, and actively discourage it. He is a much more typical priest—he thinks in terms of eternity, sin, justice, judgement, repentance. While in the 2013 series he’s also a war veteran, having served in WWI as a soldier, and in WWII as a chaplain, he still holds his cards closer to his vestments. Not for him the jazz and whiskey beloved of Sydney Chambers, the high-risk shenanigans of Father Dowling (except I guess occasionally in the 2013 series, if his nemesis Flambeau show up), or the highly emotional confessions of Father Jud. The seal of confession often looms large in these stories as his aim is to reconcile criminals with God before he worries about any secular authority. Or, well, to quote a particularly dark Father Brown story, “The Chief Mourner of Marne”: “We have to touch such men, not with a bargepole, but with a benediction,” [Father Brown] said. “We have to say the word that will save them from hell. We alone are left to deliver them from despair when your human charity deserts them. Go on your own primrose path pardoning all your favourite vices and being generous to your fashionable crimes; and leave us in the darkness, vampires of the night, to console those who really need consolation; who do things really indefensible, things that neither the world nor they themselves can defend; and none but a priest will pardon. Leave us with the men who commit the mean and revolting and real crimes; mean as St. Peter when the cock crew, and yet the dawn came.” Which is also kind of what Wake Up Dead Man is about! (Also featured in the 2013 Father Brown? A very young Josh O’Connor, in Series 3’s “The Curse of Amenhotep”) #1. William of Baskerville — The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco William of Baskerville is the brilliant creation of the equally brilliant Umberto Eco. Eco’s character draws on Sherlock Holmes, which creates the fascinating situation of watching someone with a Holmes-level intellect grapple with the 14th Century. Then he sends William and his novice, the young Benedictine Adso, off to a Benedictine monastery where they’re embroiled in a web of murder, conspiracy, sexual abuse, and fanaticism. The book is nearly 600 pages of dense theological musings and deadpan wit, and it’s sold more than 50 million copies worldwide, which gives me a tiny sliver of hope for the human race I GUESS. Also? There are six different video games based on this book. If I ever update this list, I am playing all of them. William has Sherlock’s sharp perception, his deadpan wit, his occasional sharpness with those who can’t keep up, and his taste for “some herb” that he learned about from “the infidels”. When the host Abbot comes to William to ask him to investigate the murder, they first launch into an intricate debate about William’s time as an Inquisitor, in which William, gently but firmly, insists that he didn’t usually credit the Devil with the evil acts of men—because he was too busy trying to prove whether they’d committed the acts, and if so, deliver them over to human, earthly justice. This opening conversation sets the tone of William’s whole outlook on life, where he tries to pursue knowledge for its own sake, and refuses to give in to supernatural fears when natural explanations are right there. And here, too, the seal of confession hides clues that would have allowed Willaim to solve the murders much quicker. In 1986, The Name of the Rose was adapted into a film by director Jean-Jacques Annaud with Sean Connery as William, F. Murray Abraham as the real-life Inquisitor Bernard Gui, and a VERY young Christian Slater as Adso. The first twenty minutes of the film bring the core theme to the fore, as William, a Franciscan, clashes with some far stuffier Benedictines over whether knowledge for its own sake is an affront to God, whether curiosity is of the Evil One, and whether laughing is a one-way ticket to Hell.  In case you’re looking for something to pair with your next rewatch of Conclave, this movie holds up pretty well! But the real reason William comes in at Number 1 isn’t even his sleuthing, it’s that, when the monastery’s library catches fire, he risks his life to save as many books as possible. My deepest apologies if I’ve missed some first-rate detective work, or ignored some terrible investigative blunders—especially in the cases where I only covered the book and not its adaptation (or vice versa). Add them in the comments! Tell me who I overlooked![end-mark] The post An Infallible Ranking of Crime-Solving Clergy appeared first on Reactor.