Angels of September

Anne Reilly is beautiful, successful ... and terribly afraid. Demons from her past have come back to haunt her as her Chicago art gallery exhibits a notorious mad priest's paintings of obsession and horror. Suddenly Anne finds herself slipping into a hell she cannot escape, unable to free herself from a long-hidden secret or give herself to the fulfilling love of the man she so desperately needs. Father Blackie Ryan and other "angels" of the faith now join in her struggle against the mystery that threatens her life and her sanity --- against the terror of things seen through a glass darkly, and feelings that lie closest to the heart.

The Irish, Dr. Johnson said, are a very fair racethey never speak well of one another. Greeley (The Cardinal Sins, Virgin and Martyr) lays into the Irish clergy, cops and politicians with great gusto in his best book yet. Ann Reilly is a 50-ish art gallery owner, beautiful, competent and decent. After two disastrous marriages, she falls in love with Mike Casey, a top Chicago cop and former schoolmate. But Anne's lifelong Catholicism riddles her with guilt and she's loath to marry again. An exhibit of Breughel-like paintings by a dead mad priest begins to take on fiendish vividness and Anne's life and sanity are in peril. Casey's cousin, the urbane Cathedral rector, Father "Blackie" Ryan, joins with his psychiatrist sister to fight Anne's demons. Some of Greeley's horror effects aren't quite in Stephen King's league, and Anne's guilt seems a bit unlikely, but her ongoing "autobiography" is a vivid picture of a good woman struggling to come to terms with her family and an old-fashioned Catholicism that is stunning in its repression. Greeley's zestful irreverence is a delight as he gleefully bashes Popes, bishops, cops, pols and professors, most of them Irish. 125,000 first printing; $150,000 ad/promo; author tour. February 10
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.