Murder at St Anne's is the seventh instalment in J.R. Ellis's Yorkshire Murder Mysteries series featuring D.C.I Oldroyd and his Harrogate-based team. Readers yet to discover the series need not worry, though - each book reads perfectly well as a standalone.

Like its series predecessors, Murder at St Anne's is a contemporary mystery written in a traditional style - there's a closed pool of suspects, an evocatively spooky setting and the police investigation follows a broadly familiar pattern. Jim Oldroyd is a sensitive and likeable protagonist, who enjoys good working relationships with his subordinates and a pleasant (though vegetarian!) home life with his partner, psychologist Deborah, in Harrogate, Yorkshire.

Murder at St Anne's opens with the murder of popular vicar, the Reverend Claire Wilcox, inside her church, St. Anne's in picturesque Knaresborough, North Yorkshire. This case has a personal dimension for DCI Oldroyd when he and his team are called in, as the deceased was the friend and protegée of his sister, Reverend Alison Oldroyd, whose parish is at nearby (fictional) Kirkby Underside. Not only that, but Alison was the last person to speak to Claire, by telephone, shortly before her death.

As is characteristic of J.R. Ellis's work, Murder at St Anne's features a multi-layered plot, a beguiling pool of suspects who all seem to have something to hide, and a superlative sense of setting in Ellis's native Yorkshire. Within the context of the mystery, J.R. Ellis explores themes around the misogyny and homophobia that continue to exist within certain socially-conservative pockets of the Church of England.

Murder at St Anne's is another engrossing addition to the DCI Oldroyd series, and I'd recommend it to any reader who enjoys a more traditional style of police procedural mystery.