And in seeking to help those who are facing the prospect of death, let us remember that, as we have said before, it is absolutely imperative to balance hope with reality, to encourage each other to prepare for the worst while at the same time praying and trusting for the best. And where this morning death has not reached out to us, it would be good that we heard it rattling its chains to stir us into action and to call us to faith in Jesus. Six months later, Ramsay has more or less forgotten the strange incident, busy as he is on the trail of a local child abductor. Until he receives news that Mrs Howe has disappeared once more. Then a body is washed up on the beach, and he soon gets drawn into the strange relationships of the families living on the lonely Headland...

Ann Cleeves is a gifted recruit to the traditional detective novel and on her current form will continue to command attention" There are a lot of similarities between the two sets. I was going to say ,except for the central characters, but on reflection there are likenesses there too. I am looking forward to seeing how the character of Ramsay matures through the series. You imagine writing that down? I’m not talking about writing it down out on a football field somewhere in the afternoon where a bunch get together and go, “Hey, you know, well, we’re never going to die, but let’s just put some stuff together.” No, this is somebody looking death in the face and saying, “Incidentally, don’t leave my casket open; just close it up. Be nice though, to have one or two pictures.” It’s difficult expressing all that this life and my future eternal life mean to me. This verse expresses a little of my feelings and my gratitude to God for the life, the family, and the friends he has given me. The judging panel consisted of Geoff Bradley (non-voting Chair), Lyn Brown MP (a committee member on the London Libraries service), Frances Gray (an academic who writes about and teaches courses on modern crime fiction), Heather O'Donoghue (academic, linguist, crime fiction reviewer for The Times Literary Supplement, and keen reader of all crime fiction) and Barry Forshaw (reviewer and editor of Crime Time magazine). A bioethicist—a doctor—writing concerning this says, Despite what you were told, the last taboo in polite conversation is not religion or politics; it is death. If you hang around hospitals, you don’t need convincing of this fact. Families bravely soldier on, refusing to discuss death with a dying relative. Doctors can’t bring themselves to tell patients that the end is in sight, and they find refuge in euphemisms and false cheer. Our society seems to share a universal belief that Newsweek will come out next week or soon after that with a cover story, “Found: A Cure for Death.” But the figures are in and won’t change. The death rate sooner or later is one hundred percent. [1]And she quotes Job 10:12: “You gave me life and showed … kindness and in your providence watched over my spirit.” And then she concludes in this way: It is strange, yet appropriate, that I am writing this to you on Independence Day, for I am anticipating the day when I will truly be free in the Lord. Please celebrate my homecoming with me. When the time came for Jacob to die—when the time comes for you and I to die—what then? Have you made plans? Can I ask you, do you have a will? And is it up to date? And if not, why not? And does it simply contain information regarding the functional, financial, real estate, taxation elements of life? Or does it actually contain this kind of important information which will, in our passing, leave a testimony to our faith and make things a whole lot easier for those that we leave behind? Do you realize how difficult it is going to be choosing, for some of you, your funeral hymns ’cause you love so many songs? So if you don’t write them down, we may sing the wrong ones. And do you have Scripture readings that you want read? And do you have a message for each of your children that you want opened on that day? You see, the real issue on that day is not going to be when the attorney sits at the table and everybody gets around and says, “And to my first son I leave ‘X,’ and to my second child I leave ‘Y,’ and to my wife I leave the balance of my estate,” and all those kind of things. That’s all froth; that’s all nothing stuff. The real legacy has to do with the blessings of the covenant‑keeping God, which is what takes us to our second point which we can’t get to this morning. Well, what, then, are the factors which point to this? And in asking this, we seek to learn a little of certain factors which actually will become apparent in the lives of those around us who are confronted by the actuality of this experience. Not all of them and all the time, not necessarily in this exact way, but certain of these factors, irrespective of a time of the onset of death, will become apparent to the people themselves and to others who are looking on. The Fact of Jacob’s Age This rounded off my reading of the Inspector Ramsey series. Requesting interlibrary loans for 3 in this series was well worth it. Hopefully the author and/or the publisher will take the hint and republish this gold mine again.

In this second Inspector Ramsay novel, our hero faces a murder investigation on his own doorstep following his impulsive decision to buy a cottage in the quiet Northumberland village of Heppleburn. Ann Cleeves's Northumberland-based Inspector Ramsay novels have a distinctive flavour of their own. ... This is a strong, dark crime novel, distinguished by its intelligent, spiky characterisation. These are people whose actions are rooted deeply and plausibly in their own psychology. Cleeves is particularly good at showing the claustrophobia of enclosed lives." Anne Cleeves has been there on my bookshelf for a long time. She provided me with Vera long before the TV series and then Jimmy Perez on Shetland. Having read all of these that were available, I looked for more and as I wasnt particularly taken with a chance encounter with George and Molly Palmer-Jones on an audio cassette , I settled on this Inspector Ramsay series to fill the current void. The school caretaker and his daughter pursue their own route of investigation, which should have made Inspector Ramsay's job a little easier. But hampered by false leads, powerless to pre-empt the killer's next move, and overshadowed by the evil atmosphere of All Hallow's Eve, Ramsay finds his own reputation is on the line... Now, if you’ll take your Bible and turn with me again to Genesis 47 and pay particular attention to verse 29 and the opening phrase: “When the time drew near for Israel to die.” It’s a striking phrase, is it not? Anyone who is reading the text carefully will, with any sensitivity, be caused to wonder at such a phrase certainly not simply because it speaks to the history and destiny of this man, Jacob, but because we find ourselves mirrored in such a phrase. Because although we would rather on many, if not most occasions, distance ourselves from this awful truth, the fact is that for each of us there will come a day when it will be apparent that the time has drawn near for us to die. And whether it is happening suddenly, without any sense of premonition or warning, or whether as a result of the onset of a protracted illness, there will be those who whisper behind their hands and walk from our rooms and remark to one another, “Surely, the time has come for him or for her to die.”

Jacob’s Onset of Illness

First of all then, he knew when he was leaving. Now, clearly, he didn’t know the exact time that he was leaving, but he had a sense that his diminishing powers were such that he probably shouldn’t, as they say, be buying green bananas; that his shelf life was nearing its end; that stamped on him that expiration date seemed to be coming up awful fast. And there is about the descriptive material here concerning Jacob many indications of the fact that he knew himself to be treading, as the hymn writer puts it, “the verge of Jordan.” [3] He hadn’t waded out into the stream of death, but he knew himself, at least, to be on the fringes of it. His feet were in the water, if you like, and there was a chilliness about the waters that had begun to come around his ankles, and it was apparent to him—and indeed clearly apparent to others—that he did not have long left in which to pursue his earthly pilgrimage. He knew, largely, when he was leaving. When the time drew near for Israel to die.” When the time draws near for you or I to die. You see, death is the great leveler. Irrespective of how athletic one might have been in one’s youth, or how successful, or otherwise, in the middle years of business; how attractive to other people in terms of the externals of who and what we are; how engaging in conversation; how diffident in company; whatever the characteristics of our life, there is one event which levels us all out immediately and completely. And that one event is here before us. For you see, the great question of life is not, “How do we face life and live in this world?” The real question is the one which is beyond that, in that final exit sign on the motorway of life. The question is: “How will I face death, and where will I live in the next world?” And indeed, no pastor has ever done his job properly, nor prepared his people effectively to live life in all of its fullness, unless he has prepared them to fight that final enemy and to make that final passing journey. And yet, despite that, the preoccupation of so much, so many sermons, has to do with telling people, “Don’t worry about that, let’s concentrate on now. Let us enjoy this, and let us experience that, and let us be concerned about all of these temporal, ephemeral, transient elements of life.” Not that they are irrelevant—they are vitally important—but they are not ultimately the issue, for no one, as we have said with great frequency, knows what it is to live unless they have learned how to die. And Jacob serves as a wonderful illustration of how to die. Certainly not when there is a second strangulation. Two killings are more than a chilling coincidence. A third suspicious death provides a tenuous link between all three and leads Inspector Ramsay to the Alternative Therapy Clinic. Could one of the healers be a killer? Heppleburn, once a Northumberland pit village, has always been close-knit, friendly and safe - until the murder of headmaster Harold Medburn. Suddenly, the village seems unfamiliar, uncomfortable.