Harry Kemelman (1908-1996) was a schoolteacher before World War II, worked in multiple government positions during the war and launched a freelance writing career afterwards. He began publishing in 1947 with the first of his short stories about New England college professor Nicky Welt. In 1964, the same year Fiddler on the Roof began its blockbuster run on Broadway, his first full-length mystery was released by Crown Publishing. Friday the Rabbi Slept Late with its unusual lead character and insight into Judaism captured the attention of critics and readers alike. Ten more books about Rabbi David Small and his fractious congregation in Barnard’s Crossing, Massachusetts, supposedly a fictionalized Marblehead, followed in a leisurely way. Allen J. Hubin said in his review of Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home for the New York Times of March 2, 1969, that his only complaint about the books was their infrequency.
See the New York Times obituary for Kemelman here:
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/18/books/harry-kemelman-88-mystery-novelist-dies.html
The series opener introduces the recently hired Rabbi David Small, who is studious and thoughtful but not given to political gamesmanship, which is unfortunate because his congregation loves it. Some of the more self-important members consider the rabbi less than acceptably deferential to his board of directors. When a young woman is found murdered on the grounds of the synagogue, Small’s detractors use it as leverage to replace him with an older and more experienced (meaning more sycophantic) rabbi to lead them. The local police chief Hugh Lanigan accepts Small’s assistance in the investigation and they develop a sound friendship that endures for the length of the series.
Friday the Rabbi Slept Late received the 1965 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. A made-for-TV adaptation with the title Lanigan’s Rabbi was broadcast on NBC in 1976, starring Art Carney as Chief Paul Lanigan and Stuart Margolin as Rabbi David Small. A short-lived TV series followed as part of the NBC Sunday Mystery Movie, with Carney reprising his role as Chief Lanigan and Bruce Solomon taking over the role of Rabbi Small.
A series well worth binging.