The Widow's Mate

June 18, 2007
The entertaining 26th Father Dowling mystery (after 2006’s The Prudence of the Flesh
) finds the lovable gang at St. Hilary’s poking into a decade-old crime. When Wallace Flanagan disappeared after receiving a large gift of money from his father, everyone thought he’d left his wife, Melissa, and run off with another woman. Some years later, his body is found, mangled by a cement mixer belonging to the Flanagan family business. Now people from Wally’s past are asking questions. His erstwhile lover and his father both want to know what Wally was up to between his disappearance and his death. Melissa suddenly asks Father Dowling to say a mass for his soul. Matters get even more complex when Greg Packer, a shady associate of Wally’s who had been flirting with Melissa, is killed. McInerny keeps the story moving with several twists and turns, producing another solid parish mystery for Father Dowling to solve in his usual quiet and compassionate way.

August 1, 2007
Why would the heir to the successful Flanagan concrete and construction business skip town with his mistress? Its a question family and friends have been asking themselves for 10 long years. But there are even more questions when the horribly mangled body of the missing Flanagan turns up in one of the firms cement mixers. Of course, since the Flanagans are parishioners at St. Hilarys, and Father Dowling is a close personal friend of Fox Rivers police captain, Phil Keegan, the cerebral padre is on the case. Asin his previous 25 Dowling mysteries, award-winning author McInerny presents a dizzying array of suspects, all with motives of varying intensity, from love to money to interfamily warfare. Interspersed amongshowcasing thepotential villains are sardonic glimpses of rectory life and small-town vignettes that underscore the heinous subject matter. For those who like their mysteries testosterone-free and relatively bloodless, this series continues to deliver, with a fascinating protagonist, intelligent plotting, and dry humor.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)