The Discourtesy of Death by William Brodrick

(35. - 1174.) - The Discourtesy of Death by William Brodrick - I just knew it. By 15 pages into The Discourtesy of Death I was sure the author was a lawyer and had a deep connection to monastic life. I looked at the back page flyleaf and saw William Brodrick had been an Augustinian friar before leaving the order to become a lawyer. In the book he has reversed the experience with Father Anselm being a barrister before he was a Gilbertine monk. It is hard to be exact on why I was so certain beyond the easy familiarity in the book with the practice of law and the religious life.

An investigative reporter writes of Anselm’s successes in assisting several people beyond the help of conventional legal approaches. The priory receives multiple letters pleading for his help.

He is authorized by the Prior to assist “people on the margins of hope”. Rather than being called a detective Father Anselm prefers to be described as a “fretful explorer into the dark places of the human conscience”. A grand phrase but apt for a thoughtful sleuth of crime fiction.

The Prior has received a letter imploring Anselm to examine the death of Jenny Henderson. She had been a gifted dancer who left the stage when she had a son at 19. Her husband, Peter Henderson, a gifted academic spends little time with his family. He is too busy being a public thinker and opinion giver. Jenny, after establishing a dance school, is left a paraplegic from a fall at a recital of her students. She had returned to dance for her son. A few years later she is diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer. She dies sooner than anticipated.

Recruiting Mitch Robson, a man he had twice successfully defended from fraud charges, Anselm begins his investigation.

He is a subtle questioner. Few people are ready when asked directly what happened concerning an event. It is hard to deflect or avoid when you are asked for a narrative. Anselm has learned the power of silence. Let the tension build if a question is not promptly answered. Let the one being questioned struggle to respond.

I have asked a witness a question during a trial and waited and waited and waited for an answer. The seconds feel like an eternity. The silence of not wanting to answer becomes the answer.

Was Jenny murdered or given assistance in dying because she did not want a lingering death or did she die of natural causes?

Jenny was surrounded by intelligent people. Each has a narrative that he or she presses upon Anselm.

He listens intently and always skeptically.

Jenny’s father, Michael, served in the intelligence services of the British Army in Northern Ireland during “The Troubles” and returned a changed man. His nickname for Jenny before the fall was Nimblefoot.

Her mother, Emma, is a veterinarian well skilled in putting down animals.

Her Uncle Nigel is an Anglican minister who does his best to ease her anguish. Much of his communication with Jenny was by letter as he was out of England for much of the time following her fall.

Nigel’s wife, Helen, is perceptive and observant while basically overlooked by the other members of the family.

Her husband, Peter, abandons the life of a public intellectual and becomes her caregiver.

Her son, Timothy, is 12 at her death and 14 in the book. He is a bright young man who finds the dysfunctions of his family “weird”.

A fellow dancer, Vincent Cooper, has come to the area to repair classic cars. He sees Jenny often. He desperately wants to help her.

Dr. Ingleby, is her physician, a general practitioner who also provides care at a hospice. He sees Jenny at her home. He meets Anselm on the grounds of a long destroyed abbey. They talk in the ruins of the Chapter House, a place Anselm says “where everyone has the right to speak honestly without fear of condemnation, without fear of being quoted afterwards, without pressure to conform to the will of the majority”.

Did any hasten the end for Jenny?

Each conversation Anselm has with those who surrounded Jennie is mentally draining for him and the reader. The cover picture is apt showing Anselm engaged in deep thought.

Anselm states “ I look to the law” while others “in certain circumstances, will look the other way”. Anselm’s way leads to the Rule of Law. “The other way” leads to personal vigilante action which is often followed by further vigilantism.

Even in our current era of medically assisted dying in Canada it is inevitable there are difficult situations, especially when the terminally ill are beset by conflicting emotions. Yet it is worse when others decide on life and death.

Anselm knows that, for those with a conscience, being a vigilante will have  fearsome psychological consequences.

Anselm normally pursues “truth in its entirety” but this time the goal is unachievable for some secrets need to stay in the “cupboard”.

Brodrick is very skilful at providing twist after twist, always logical, always carefully presented, mostly unforeseen by me.

Anselm is a man of great integrity, conviction and faith. The moral issues challenge him and the reader. It has been some time since I had to think my way through a work of crime fiction.

Brodrick is an excellent writer. I want to know Father Anselm better.