The Perfect Patsy: 9 (The Father Tom Mysteries)

I take his head in my hands and force him to look at me. "Nate," I say again, this time more forcefully, "where did all this blood come from?" 

This seems to get through, and his unseeing eyes struggle to focus on mine as one whispered word escapes his lips.

"Her."
 

When the body of Ashley Becket is found naked, tied up, and butchered in Nate Rodriguez's bed, Father Tom can't believe the young man's responsible.

Then, it's discovered Ashley was a prostitute . . . and Nate was a frequent customer.

As the rumors fly around Saint Clare's and the gamer group fractures, Father Tom finds himself trying to keep his parish together and repair Nate's relationship with Gladys. He soon discovers that Nate is keeping a huge secret from the woman he loves--a secret that led him to hire Ashley in the first place.

Then, Gladys finds evidence that points away from Nate--and to someone who couldn't possibly be responsible.

Because, after all, Richard Davenport is safely behind bars . . .

Susan Mathis was born in and grew up in an extremely small town in Alachua County, Florida where her family has lived for more than 100 years. When Susan was still very young, James (J.R) Mathis was born in a somewhat bigger small town about 100 miles south of where she lived. Within a decade, James' small town would become part of Orlando, the biggest tourist destination in the United States. He was not amused. That is how, while Susan was running barefoot, swimming in lakes full of alligators and feeding chickens, James was sitting in his bedroom reading books faster than his father could bring them home from the library.

Were James and Susan to write their love story, it would definitely be an enemies-to-lovers trope. They met in the library where he was working. He found her demands for books that he had to pull and bring to her so unreasonable that he actually turned her into the head librarian. She in turn was so anxious to drive him away that when some friends secretly set them up she laid out an entire speech about how miserable her life was (she is typically very upbeat). Little did she suspect that he had a passionate attraction to misery and they were married just over a year later.

Fast forward 26 years, three children, four grandchildren and 20 years of James working for the Federal government. He was diagnosed with a highly treatable but still very scary form of cancer. As so often happens, this brush with mortality inspired him to do something he'd always wanted to do, write a novel. After the publication of the second Father Tom Mystery, Susan joined him as coauthor. As far as the Mathises are concerned, writing together is the most fun a couple can have sitting at a computer.