The Purgatory Poisoning by Rebecca Rogers

An enjoyable comic fantasy murder mystery

When Dave wakes up in a St Ives youth hostel in 1992 he knows there must be something amiss, because for one thing the last time he looked it was 2019. Then he finds out he’s dead, and this is his own slant on purgatory. In fact he’s not just dead he’s been murdered, and for reasons that are a tad complicated the all-seeing all-knowing deity doesn’t happen to know who did it. Dave is going to have to work that out himself, with the help of a pair of angels. But it’s ok — the junior angel has watched every episode of Columbo.

Rebecca Rogers won the Comedy Women in Print (Unpublished) prize 2022, for The Purgatory Poisoning which was then published in 2023. When interviewed, she has revealed herself to be a big fan of both Michael Palin and Terry Pratchett, and it shows. This is classic British comic fantasy in the Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Tom Holt vein. Irreverent, silly, tackling all the big philosophical questions, very nice about Michael Palin, and featuring slightly acerbic but ultimately adorable angels.

I really enjoyed the way layer after layer of story was revealed so that your understanding keeps shifting, and your views of certain characters change as you go along. To be honest the murder mystery aspect of the novel probably isn’t that mysterious to anyone who’s read a lot of crime fiction but that’s not the point. Dave and the angels remain in the dark — the reader knows more, sooner — and it’s great fun to follow their investigation, plus the why and the how were less obvious than the who.

I laughed a lot and raced through this novel. In one of the CWIP interviews, there was talk of a sequel and I would very much like to read it if and when it appears.