Death Goes on Retreat

October 30, 1995
Poor Sister Mary Helen! After her eventful trip to Spain (Murder Makes a Pilgrimage), the septuagenarian and her cohort, Sister Eileen, find more trouble only 65 miles from their San Francisco college home. Arriving at St. Collette's Retreat House in Santa Cruz a week earlier than scheduled, the two meet the harried administrator, her antagonistic cook and young assistant. They decide to stay for the night and have dinner with the five priests who are beginning their week's retreat. The next morning, as she walks around the grounds, Sister Mary Helen stumbles on the body of a young man who, she learns, was the cook's assistant's boyfriend, a former activist seminarian well known to the other priests. As in past books, the good sister's curiosity nags her into discovering who stabbed the young man to death. She elicits the help of Kate Murphy, her SFPD homicide inspector friend, to find out about the man's mother and befriends local Detective Sergeant Bob Little, who shares information, some of it personal, with her. Sister Mary Helen's gentle insights inform this story about age-old prejudices with a quiet wisdom.