Ash Wednesday
A Father Dowling Mystery
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
With parishioners up in arms, Father Dowling has to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that a conviction is no proof of guilt in Ash Wednesday, the newest addition to Ralph McInerny's acclaimed and beloved mystery series.
Father Dowling has been serving as parish priest and resident sleuth at St. Hilary's for a while now, but he's no lifer, and there's plenty that he doesn't know about the old guard. So when a stranger comes to Fox River who isn't a stranger to anyone but him, he has to rely on his prying housekeeper to tell him that the mystery man is actually a well-known murderer.
Ten years ago, Nathaniel Green's wife was dying of cancer, and after a short remission she relapsed into a coma. That small sliver of hope so utterly dashed must have been too much for him because when the nurses came to check on her they found that he had taken her off of her life support.
Green's return divides the community, but the more Father Dowling ponders the moral questions and reinvestigates the case, the more he wonders if Green committed any crime at all.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the start of McInerny's uplifting 27th Father Dowling mystery (after 2007's The Widow's Mate), a stranger asks the pastor of St. Hilary's if it's all right for the priest to have put ashes on his forehead. After all, as Nathaniel Green admits, he's not a Catholic. Furthermore, Nathaniel has just been released from prison, where he spent nearly 10 years after admitting he'd turned off the life support system of his wife, Florence, who was suffering from terminal cancer. Having lost his Catholic faith after Florence's death, Nathaniel is now returning to his old parish, much to the consternation of his sister-in-law and others. In his usual gentle, thoughtful way, Father Dowling makes compassionate decisions while other members of his parish become entangled in a complicated web of crime and deceit. Readers who long for a down-to-earth story of ordinary people and events will be well rewarded.
