FICTION · CATHOLICS
Ralph M. McInerny
Also known as: Ralph McInerny
I WAS DRIVING a '69 Chevy Nova 370 four-barrel with mag wheels and a dual exhaust.
— from Ash Wednesday
Most acclaimed
Bishop As Pawn
Bishop as Pawn starts with the totally unexpected return of Father Dowlings' housekeeper's husband, Billy, after he had deserted her 15 years before. Then Billy is gunned down by a sniper. The murder in the rectory of St. Hillary’s Church of Fox River serves as a prelude to the kidnapping of Bishop Rooney of the Archdiocese of Chicago soon after. It turns out to be a case involving the kidnapping of a bishop for extortion, blackmailing for terror, and murder for revenge. The relationship of one case to the other is confusing for all involved but Father Dowling has, as his friend Bishop Rooney tells him, "the knack for being at the center of strange happenings". It’s Father Dowling who provides police with the necessary link to solve the kidnapping. He’s also the one who finds the Bishop after he’s been kidnapped, and with the help of Captain Keegan, finally sees him rescued. It is an entertaining story with the amiable and thoughtful Father Dowling making an increasingly interesting central character.
Ash Wednesday
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.With parishioners up in arms, Father Dowling has to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that a conviction is no proof of guilt in Ash Wednesday, the newest addition to Ralph McInerny’s acclaimed and beloved mystery series.
Her Death of Cold
What starts out on a sleepy summer morning in a Midwestern town as just a parish annoyance—a frightened widow and the embarrassment and squabbling of her socially prominent children—rapidly develops into a case of mysterious disappearance and a thoroughly dead corpse. On the way we meet a cluster of amusingly colorful characters with, at their heart, Father Roger Dowling, veteran of years of exposure to his fellow creatures. Inured as he is to human folly, philosophically detached and quite unshockable, Father Dowling yet has a passion for seeing clearly. And where crime is concerned, he must see clearly: the intent behind the crime is his utmost concern. HER DEATH OF COLD, the first of the new Father Dowling Mystery series, promises satisfaction ahead for detective-story readers everywhere, far beyond the limits of Father Dowling’s parish.