False Tongues - Softcover

''In Charles's accomplished fourth Callie Anson mystery (after 2009's Deep Waters), the Anglican curate faces a former lover and old friends at a religious retreat in Cambridge, as well as the less-than-enthusiastic family of her new fiancé, Mark Lombardi. A police-family liaison officer, Mark gets involved in investigating the knifing murder of teenager Sebastian Frost in London's Paddington Green. Though Sebastian apparently had it all - popularity, brains, good looks, athletic ability Det. Insp. Neville Stewart soon uncovers a darker side to his life in his relationships to schoolmates and technology. The interesting narrative approach of alternating Cambridge and London sections provides texture and commentary on family situations from various points of view. Some readers may be disappointed not to find a more direct connection between the case and Callie, but the toll of cyberbullying and the pressure to conform to social expectations is intelligently and poignantly rendered.'' --Publishers Weekly

''A trip to her old college offers deacon Callie Anson (Deep Waters, 2009, etc.) both challenges and opportunities. Callie hadn't planned on attending Deacon's Week, her alma mater's conference for recent graduates. Her memories of Archbishop Temple House are sweet, but her breakup with her classmate Adam is just too recent and painful. Even her budding romance with Family Liaison Officer Mark Lombardi can't take the sting out of her memories of Adam's announcement shortly after their graduation that he'd be marrying parishioner Pippa instead of Callie. But Tamsin Howells swears that Adam isn't coming to Deacon's Week, and Callie would love to see Tamsin and her old friends Val Carver and Nicky Lamb. So she bundles off to Kings Cross station only to be bedeviled by weekend repairs on the District and Circle Lines - and finds when she finally arrives at Archbishop Temple that Adam has decided to come after all. Back home, Mark confronts his Italian family's coolness toward his relationship with Callie and their determination to find him a nice Italian girl instead. At work, he's involved in a heart-rending case: the stabbing death of Sebastian Frost, young, athletic and promising, the only child of Richard and Miranda Frost, a doctor and a surgeon. As Mark tries to guide the Frosts through the challenges of a police investigation they'd prefer was unnecessary, Callie confronts mysteries of her own: the mysteries of the human heart. Callie has never been more appealing than in this sensitive exploration of love and loss.'' --Kirkus

Callie Anson should have learned her lesson by now: revisiting the past is seldom a good idea. But she succumbs to peer pressure and attends a reunion at her theological college in Cambridge, where she is forced to confront painful memories - and the presence of her clueless ex, Adam. Margaret Phillips, the Principal of the college, has a chance for happiness but before she can grasp it she has to deal with her own ghosts - as well as corrosive, intrusive gossip. Both women learn something about themselves, and about forgiveness, from the wise John Kingsley. Meanwhile, in London, police officers Neville Stewart and Mark Lombardi are involved with the latest fatal stabbing of a teenager. Was gifted, popular Sebastian Frost all he seemed to be, or was there something in his life that led inevitably to his death? They're plunged into the queasy world of cyber-bullying, where nothing may be as it seems. While they're apart, Callie and Mark's relationship is on hold, and his Italian family continues to be an issue. Will Marco realise, before it's too late, that while his family will always be important to him, he is entitled to something for himself?