I like these mysteries because the characters are consistent from book to book. Sister Mary Helen and her friend Eileen will become old friends, along with Sister Cecilia, the president of St. Francis College in San Francisco, young Sister Anne, who is in campus ministry and Sister Therese, who seems to be in charge of the convent. You will also meet Kate and Dennis, partners in the homicide department, and Jack, Kate’s significant other, and later husband. In the first book Kate and Jack just live together and Kate doesn’t want it any other way – Jack’s the one who wants to get married. By the end of the fourth book, they are not only married, but have their first child. You will enjoy getting to know them as they unravel their relationship. Sister Mary Helen seems to always be getting personally involved in murder cases. She is seems to be finding dead bodies all the time, or suspecting murder, or even witnessing murder. And it seems the police, even her friend Kate and her partner Dennis, can’t quite solve their cases without her help on the side. Kate and Dennis have told her many times to leave the investigations to them, but Sister Mary Helen just can’t help herself, and she sometimes barely misses being killed herself when she finally confronts the murderer. I enjoy these books because they have clues I can notice and use to solve the mysteries along with Sister Mary Helen and the homicide detectives instead of having an unexpected twist at the end that could not really be predicted with the information the reader has. I also enjoy seeing inside the convent. I’m not Catholic, but I appreciate Mary Helen’s expressions of faith, her compassion, and her prayer life, along with her capacity to laugh at herself and portray the foibles of all the sisters that make them approachable. Mary Helen really cares about the people who are hurt physically and emotionally by murder in their families and communities. She gets involved because she cares. She is even concerned about the killers and often prays for them. Especially in Murder of An Angel, both killers had been abused by family members and their killing was a response to that abuse. Sister Mary Helen knows that we are all sinners, who need the grace of God, and she seeks to minister to people as well as to find killers before they strike again. The books in this series are not thrillers that keep you on the edge of your seat. You can read them in bed and quit before the end, unless you are very near the end. Unlike most murder mysteries I’ve read so far, I can come away from these books without getting too close to the seamy side of life. The characters are well-developed. The language is realistic but not laced with four-letter words. I wouldn’t care if my teens read these books. People aren’t perfect, but neither are they perfect in real life. Sister Mary Helen recognizes that not everyone believes as she does and is tolerant, not condemning. She is friend to those affected by murder even as she questions them. That’s why people tell her things they don’t tell the detectives. If you need the constant stimulation and suspense of a thriller, you probably won’t care for these books. But if you want to solve the mysteries yourself, meet memorable characters you can care about, and don’t want to see lots of gore, sex, and foul language, you might want to give these a try. It’s best to read them in order, since later books refer back to earlier books.
My favourite kind of murder mystery, one that involves nuns. This is a rather pedestrian mystery, but it's fun nonetheless. The characters are believable, even the ones that one doesn't particularly like. The police are believable and, most importantly, not complete idiots. There's nothing worse than a murder mystery where one has to 'take over' the investigation because the police are twits. It's not often that that happens in real life, I don't know why it's so ubiquitous in murder mysteries.While I did say that the mystery itself is rather pedestrian, it also manages to be complex and unpleasant, as all good mysteries that result in murder should be. Perhaps it's only pedestrian because I read far too many books of this sort.Anyway, it's a fun read and I'll be keeping an eye out for others in the Sister Mary Helen series and by this author (a nun herself) in general.
Do You like book Novena For Murder (2005)?
I enjoyed this book for its setting (Lone Mountain College for Women in San Francisco, although she gives it another name) and for the portrait it gives of an era, but it's a mannered portrait and feels false 30 years later. (This is in contrast to Dorothy Sayer's mysteries.)My mother went to Lone Mountain for a year in the early 40s. It's nickname then was "San Francisco's college for lonely women." (It might have been "Holy Hill",too; I just never heard that.)When I was at USF, I would sometimes trudge up Lone Mountain's hill to use their stunning library, set in a Gothic style building with brilliant blue carpets and a deep silence.
—Mary Helene
I liked the characters of the nuns and the old school convent life, but I wasn't at all invested in the murder victims-- people at the college associated with the Portuguese immigrant community. I thought the story could have had more bite or even humor-- one senior nun always seemed to have a different, obscure saint to pray to for every occasion-- but it didn't seem to go deep enough or give the authors point of view. Hopefully, like with many authors, the writing will get better in later books.
—Diane Zielinski
