Murder in Ordinary Time (A Sister Mary Helen Mystery) - Hardcover

O'Marie, Carol Anne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385302266 ISBN 13: 9780385302265

Publisher: Delacorte Press, 1991

Synopsis

Sister Mary Helen, nun and amateur sleuth, investigates the mysterious death of investigative reporter Christina Kelly, who died after eating a cyanide-laced cookie moments before she was to interview Sister Mary Helen for the noon news

About this title

Reviews

The unusual insight into human nature gained by followers of the religious life is again demonstrated by Sister Mary Helen, semiretired from teaching at San Francisco's Mount St. Francis College and last encountered in The Missing Madonna . Appearing on a local TV news show, Sister Mary Helen finds herself plunged into a murder case when investigative reporter Christina Kelly dies on the air, poisoned with a cookie mysteriously delivered to the studio. Although police inspectors Dennis Gallagher and Kate Murphy (the latter in the last month of pregnancy), her old friends and antagonists, order her not to interfere, Sister Mary Helen feels she is morally obligated to solve the murder when the Greek mother of the victim asks her to avenge her daughter. Interpol comes into the picture when it turns out that Christina had been investigating a ring that smuggled Greek antiquities, but Sister Mary Helen's knowledge of human nature uncovers an older source for the tragedy. Sister O'Marie's unsensational and warmhearted portrayal of convent, family and police life, tied into a tidy mystery with modern trappings, makes for a satisfying read.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

San Francisco's elderly, sleuthing Sister Mary Helen is once again barging in where Police Inspectors Kate Murphy and Dennis Gallagher have begged her not to go (Advent of Dying, etc.). This time, Sister Mary Helen was among others waiting to be interviewed on a local TV news program when newswoman Christina Kelly died of cyanide poisoning, having eaten the only tainted cookie in a plateful from an unknown donor. It's soon apparent that Christina was not the intended victim, but the reader will have latched onto the murderer long before the police are led to the solution by Sister Mary Helen. Strained and tedious, padded with chitchat on menus, interior decor, weather, the Super Bowl, Catholic ritual, and the imminent birth of Kate Murphy's baby. In all: unpretentious but unrewarding. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Delacorte Press
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0385302266
• ISBN 13: 9780385302265
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 245