Death of a Novice
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- €5.49
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- €5.49
Publisher Description
The sudden death of a young novice nun raises a series of puzzling questions in the latest Reverend Mother historical mystery.
The Reverend Mother is delighted with her new entrant to the convent. Young Sister Gertrude is well-educated, has worked for an accountant and has an appealing sense of humour. But one autumn morning, Sister Gertrude is found dead inside a small wooden shed, just beside the river. Surely a young nun could not die from alcohol poisoning?
But when the Reverend Mother delves more deeply into Sister Gertrude’s background, she finds some puzzling anomalies. Why did the young nun not delay her entry to the convent until after her sister’s wedding? Is it a coincidence that her father died of a similar illness not long before? And could there be a link between Sister Gertrude’s death and the gunpowder explosion on Spike Island? The Reverend Mother must find the answers to these questions if she is to safeguard her community from suspicions of murder.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Early in Harrison's workmanlike fifth whodunit set in 1920s Ireland (after 2017's A Gruesome Discovery), Reverend Mother Aquinas is devastated to find the body of 22-year-old Sister Gertrude, a promising new member of her convent, in a hen shed. When the doctor who examines Sister Gertrude deems her a victim of alcohol poisoning, the reverend mother considers that verdict ludicrous and resolves to discover the real cause of death. Meanwhile, another novice, Sister Catherine, claims that Sister Gertrude was extorting two other novitiates, who regarded Sister Gertrude as insufficiently patriotic and spoke of killing her. A prologue reveals that a ruthless Sinn Fein leader has been using two nuns to further his cause, raising the likelihood that Sister Gertrude was murdered. Harrison's vivid recreation of the turbulent period when most of Ireland gained independence from Britain compensates for a solution that's not up to her usual high standard.