The Religious Body - Catherine Aird

Catherine Aird was the pen name used by Kinn Hamilton McIntosh to publish her twenty-eight-book Inspector Sloan series, a series comprised of twenty-seven novels and one short story compilation featuring the inspector. The Religious Body, published in 1966, was both Aird’s debut novel and the first book in the series. Aird, who is now 91 years old, last added to the series in 2019 with Inheritance Tracks. 

Aird begins her story with the discovery of a literal “religious body” found inside the Convent of St. Anselm after it is learned early one morning that a nun’s small cell/bedroom is empty. Believing at first that the missing nun has made her way to the convent’s sick bay on her own, it is only later in the morning that the resident nuns begin to search for the missing Sister Anne. When they find her dead body at the base of the cellar stairs, the Reverend Mother knows that, as much as she wishes it were not so, she is going to have to call the police — and worse yet, she is going to have to let them inside the convent.

That’s where Inspector C.D. Sloan of the Calleshire CID learns that he has more than fifty potential suspects, and that most of those are nuns. That’s bad enough, but later when the all-boys agricultural school next door to the convent burns a guy dressed as a nun on Guy Fawkes night, Sloan and his team have to add another few dozen potential suspects to what is already proving to be an overwhelming list.

The Religious Body is a bit of a cross between a cozy and a police procedural, with the emphasis being on cozy. People do die, but they do so behind the curtain, and even after the bodies are discovered, the reader is largely sheltered from any detail about the murders themselves that would ever be considered offensive or shocking to modern-day readers. What I find most appealing about The Religious Body is the author’s rather subtle sense of humor — a style reflected both in the title of the book and in the little asides peppered throughout the narrative that Aird uses to add funny, but meaningful, insights into the make-up of key characters. 

Bottom Line: If The Religious Body is any indication, fans of cozy mysteries are going to enjoy the Inspector Sloan series a lot. Keeping in mind that the series was produced over the course of five decades, it is, of course, possible that the tone of the books changed over time. Because I’m a fan of more realistic mysteries that don’t so obviously pull their punches, it is unlikely that I will explore the series any further but if you like a good cozy, this is definitely an author — and a series — you need to consider.

Catherine Aird