“Ash Wednesday”
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Burned once,
I tried again,
Didn't work.
Slow and
boring again.
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Father Dowling has been serving as parish priest and resident sleuth at St. Hilary’s for a while now, but he’s no lifer, and there’s plenty that he doesn’t know about the old guard.
So when a stranger comes to Fox River who isn’t a stranger to anyone but him, he has to rely on his prying housekeeper to tell him that the mystery man is actually a well-known murderer.
Ten years ago, Nathaniel Green’s wife was dying of cancer, and after a short remission she relapsed into a coma. That small sliver of hope so utterly dashed must have been too much for him because when the nurses came to check on her they found that he had taken her off of her life support.
Green’s return divides the community, but the more Father Dowling ponders the moral questions and reinvestigates the case, the more he wonders if Green committed any crime at all.
"Irish Alibi"
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| This book just moved too slowly, I gave up and moved to the end and wound up completely in the dark. |
With the Fighting Irish set to square off against Georgia Tech, Roger Knight, the rotund professor of Catholic studies, and his brother Philip, a semi-retired P.I., know that Notre Dame fans will be out in force.
The faithful swear that on game day the entire campus comes alive to cheer on the football team, and they don't have to look any further than Touchdown Jesus or Fair Catch Corby, a statue of a Civil War chaplain who seems to be signaling another pass completion, for proof, misguided as it may be.
But this year, this friendly and sometimes heated North-South rivalry turns downright hostile when Notre Dame's ties to the Union during the Civil War are dug up, and two students, brothers and Southern gentlemen, are spurred to defend their honor with a prank nearly 150 years after the fact. While they both admit to being the culprit, only one of them could've actually committed the vandalism.
But which one? By stretching one alibi over two people, they may dodge expulsion. But then they become suspects in a seemingly unrelated murder case that the Knights must solve, or else getting thrown out will be the least of the boys' problems.
"The Widow's Mate"
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| Some good meoments, but nothing great. |
Father Dowling is a dedicated parish priest who happens to have a knack for unraveling the mysteries of the real world as well as those of heaven, but the latest puzzle to catch his attention---the disappearance of Wallace Flanagan---doesn’t seem to be a mystery so much as a dirty little secret.
By all appearances, Flanagan, the heir to a lucrative concrete business, skipped town with his mistress more than ten years ago, although no one talks about that out of respect for his abandoned wife. But appearances go right out the window when his mangled---and recently live---body is found wedged into one of his father’s cement mixers.
If Flanagan’s unexpected return and immediate death aren’t enough to shake a few skeletons from their closets, childhood friends and lifelong enemies have started trickling home to Fox River, Illinois, a town outside of Chicago.
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| Navy Pier in Chicago |
A collision between the past and present dislodges some hard and hidden truths that Father Dowling must uncover if he’s going to catch a killer in Ralph McInerny’s "The Widow’s Mate," an absorbing and suspenseful mystery that is sure to please Father Dowling’s many fans.
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| Ralph McInerny |
Ralph McInerny, well-known as a mystery writer, was the pen behind the Andrew Broome series and the popular Father Dowling mysteries, which were adapted for television.
In 1993 he was awarded the Bouchercon Lifetime Achievement Award for his fiction. He also helped found the magazine Crisis: Culture, Politics and the Church, to which he regularly contributed, and the now-defunct Catholic Dossier: Issues in the Round, on which he served as general editor.
Until his death on 29 January 2010 Professor McInerny lived in South Bend, Indiana, working as a scholar and writer. His wife, Connie, died in 2002; their marriage produced six children.
"Blood Ties"
Henry Dolan's granddaughter, Martha Lynch, adopted 23 years earlier, wants to find her birth parents. Her adopted parents are frantic over the idea of losing her, so Henry seeks out Father Dowling for help.
Meanwhile, Martha's birth father, Nathaniel Fleck, who left before Martha's birth, has contacted Martha's real mother, Madeline, for details about Martha.
Madeline panics, afraid he won't leave her alone, and turns to Amos Cadbury, a lawyer, for advice. When Nathaniel is found murdered two days later, Dowling and Amos must juggle the responsibility of spoiling the peace of the families involved while uncovering the truth behind the murder.
"Blood Ties" is an absorbing and suspenseful addition to this beloved series.
