Kirkus Review
Another sleuthing triumph for San Franciscos elderly Sister Mary Helen of Mount Saint Francis College and her Irish best friend Sister Eileen (Death of An Angel, 1997, etc.). The murder victim this time is Monsignor Joseph Higgins, pastor of St. Agathasa suavely elegant man with a taste for the finer things, now found dead of poison after a meeting of the parish council. Sisters Mary Helen and Eileen, delivering a loaf of homemade Irish soda bread to the rectory in honor of St. Patricks Day, were invited by the Monsignor to join the council meeting for tea and were appalled by the tension- charged atmosphere at the table as tea and the hacked-up soda bread were handed round by surly housekeeper Eveleen Glynn. The other participantsretired professor Nicholas Komsky; alcoholic George Jenkin; bejeweled Tina Rodiman; weepy Debbie Stevens; recent widower and council treasurer Fred Davis, and parish administrator Sister Noreenall make clear their scorn and hatred for the Monsignor, who was accused at the time of his death of using church funds for his own self-indulgence. Getting to the bottom of things takes a couple of replays of the meeting, orchestrated by Inspector Dennis Gallagher with partner Kate Murphy and accompanied by his usual bitter complaints about Sister Mary Helens attempts to help. But help she doeseventually arriving at the crucial clue to the killer. Clumsily plotted and largely unsuspenseful but enlivened by its series of incisive character studiesand sure to please the Sisters legion of fans.
Booklist Review
On a San Francisco St. Patrick's Day, Sister Mary Helen and Sister Eileen are delivering soda bread to Monsignor Joseph P. Higgins of St. Agnes in the Sunset District. The nuns find Higgins in a tense parish council meeting, and the next day he is dead from poison. The sisters are drawn into the case since they were among the last to see Higgins alive. This eighth Sister Mary Helen novel offers vivid characters, light humor, and great views of San Francisco. Inspectors Kate Murphy and Dennis Gallagher are strong foils to the nuns; Gallagher's bluster and insight suggest an updated Lieutenant Phil Pevsner from Kaminsky's Toby Peters series. Many of the other series set in San Francisco are considerably more hard-boiled than this one, but Susan Dunlap's Kiernan O'Shaughnessy novels perhaps best capture O'Marie's spirit. --John Rowen
Library Journal Review
This mystery marks the eighth appearance of amateur sleuths sisters Mary Helen and Eileen as their paths intersect with yet another murder. This time the unfortunate deceased is Monsignor Joseph P. Higgins, pastor of a local parish. The good sisters are delivering Irish soda bread to the benefactors of their college when they interrupt a tense and angry parish counsel meeting led by the Monsignor. In this strained atmosphere, the sisters, Higgins, and the parish counsel take tea together, and of course later the pastor is discovered dead from poisoning. Along with members of the counsel and the Monsignor's household staff, the sisters are among the last to see him alive and fall into the category of suspects. As such they are well placed and well motivated to ferret out the identity of the killer from among a plethora of motives. The reader, Agnes Herrmann, provides an adequate narrative voice, but her characterizations come off as cartoonish, which give the program a slightly jarring sense of farce. Fans of the series will appreciate this; otherwise, libraries should purchase only as demand warrants.Kristen L. Smith, Loras Coll., Dubuque, IA(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
