Sister Eve and the Blue Nun

Starred review from May 9, 2016
Nun and amateur detective Sister Eve is once again on the case in Hinton's page-turning third installment of her Divine Private Detective Agency Mystery series (after The Case of the Sin City Sister). Dr. Kelly Middlesworth is to present the keynote address at a conference about the venerated Sr. Maria de Jesus de Agreda, also known as the Blue Nun. Her sibling, Brother Anthony, a friend of Sister Eve's, recently discovered long-hidden writings by Sr. Maria and secretly gave them to Middlesworth, who is eager to share them with the world. After fighting with her brother, Middlesworth is found dead in her monastery guest room. All the evidence points to Brother Anthony as the killer, especially after he flees the scene of the crime, but Sister Eve is determined to find the real culprit and clear her friend's name. Hinton, who holds a Master of Divinity degree, makes use of her training in an important subplot that explores Sister Eve's relationship with the Catholic Church as she continues to consider whether she wants to leave her Benedictine community. This is an engrossing whodunit featuring multiple suspects that will engage mystery lovers and leave them eager to read Sister Eve's further adventures.

March 15, 2016
A nun may need divine intervention to rescue her from a desperate killer. Now that she and her fellow nuns have been thrown out of the New Mexico monastery most have called home for many years, Sister Eve Divine has some life-changing decisions to make. She's enjoyed helping her father, a retired police detective, with several of his cases (The Case of the Sin City Sister, 2015, etc.) and, deeply disturbed at being treated as a second-class citizen by the church, considers giving up her life as a nun despite her deep faith. She's temporarily back at the monastery as she tries to decide what to do, when her friend Brother Anthony's sister, Kelly, a college professor, is found dead in her room. Anthony, who'd recently had a loud argument with his sister, admits to Eve that he'd stolen some papers from the Isleta Pueblo concerning Sister Maria de Jesus de Agreda, the 17th-century Blue Nun who lived in Spain but reputedly traveled to New Mexico to visit the Jumano people, who then converted to Christianity. Anthony blames himself for his beloved sister's death because he gave her the papers since she had an academic interest in the Blue Nun. Then Anthony vanishes, and even though he left behind a letter that reads like a confession, Eve is certain that he didn't kill his sister. Of course the police, including her father's former partner and an attractive Native American, think Anthony is the most likely suspect. Despite warnings from them and her father, Eve sets out to prove Anthony's innocence and ends up putting herself in such a dangerous position that only an unusual source of help can save her. Hinton mixes lots of twists and action with mysticism and a touch of romance, but the biggest puzzle in Sister Eve's third case may be the heroine's reckless decision-making.

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