Being single, ordained and in sole charge of a parish can often be lonely, as Revd. Wendy Morris knows all too well. It's a situation not helped by having an egotistical and ambitious archdeacon, whose interference fuels rather than quells the criticism and conflict Wendy deals with as rector of St. Olaf's.Following the resignation of her crabby, disgruntled organist, Wendy appoints a former RUC officer to succeed him. Things further look up with the arrival of a new clerical neighbour and his family.A new era of cooperation begins…and rapidly falls apart as a story of revenge and murder unfolds.Featuring characters who will be familiar to readers of Ted Woods' first novel Bishop, Priest is a stand-alone murder mystery set in the fictitious Church of Ireland diocese of Daneford. I am a retired priest of the Church of Ireland, now living in Liverpool.I served in a number of parishes in Ireland, North and South, most latterly in Rathfarnham, Dublin. I was a General Synod member, a Director of Ordinands, and worked in The Theological College looking after intern deacons in their final year.For many years, I wrote a column on ministry for the Church of Ireland Gazette. For five years before retirement, I wrote a weekly 'soap' – 'Down in St. David's' – for the Gazette about the ups and downs of clerical life. On my retirement, another writer took over.I have self-published a book on Kindle – And Some There Were… – a light look at 'the Good, the Bad and the Ugly' in the clergy of the Church of Ireland's past. The book includes twenty-five sketches, historically accurate, of priests and prelates from Reformation times to the twentieth century. With the aim of informing and entertaining, And Some There Were… features the rogues as well as the righteous, the murdered and the murdering, priests and bishops alike.
