Irish Linen (Nuala Anne McGrail Series) » (Bargain)

A native of Chicago, Reverend Andrew M. Greeley, is a priest, distinguished sociologist and bestselling author. He is professor of social sciences at the University of Chicago and the University of Arizona, as well as Research Associate at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. His current sociological research focuses on current issues facing the Catholic Church-including celibacy of priests, ordination of women, religious imagination, and sexual behavior of Catholics.

Father Greeley received the S.T.L. in 1954 from St. Mary of Lake Seminary. His graduate work was done at the University of Chicago, where he received the M.A. Degree in 1961 and the Ph.D. in 1962.

Father Greeley has written scores of books and hundreds of popular and scholarly articles on a variety of issues in sociology, education and religion. His column on political, church and social issues is carried by the Chicago Sun Times and many other newspapers. He stimulates discussion of neglected issues and often anticipates sociological trends. He is the author of more than thirty bestselling novels and an autobiography, Furthermore!: Confessions of a Parish Priest.

The perils of wartime add special urgency to latest mysteries being investigated by Nuala Anne McGrail and her adoring husband, Dermot Coyne. More than a little fey, Nuala has a well-deserved reputation for getting to the bottom of even the most tangled intrigues, even when they may be taking place on the other side of the world.

Desmond Doolin, an idealistic young man from their West Side Chicago neighborhood, has gone missing in Iraq. Having flown off to the Middle East in the name of peace, he hasn’t been heard of since. The U.S. government denies any knowledge of his whereabouts, and his grieving family has all but written him off as dead, but Nuala is convinced that there’s more to the story . . . and herself won’t stop asking questions until she finds out what has really become of Desmond, one way or another.

Meanwhile, a parallel investigation uncovers the story of another young man abroad in dangerous times. Poking around in the past, Dermot and Nuala happen upon the memoirs of Timothy Patrick Clarke, the Irish ambassador to Nazi Germany, who risked his life for the sake of a beautiful German widow . . . and a secret plot to kill Adolf Hitler.

Working together as always, Nuala and her husband find themselves engrossed in the secrets of the past, the present, and two very different wars.

Irish Linen is another captivating installment in a series that Publishers Weekly calls “immensely entertaining.”

Publishers Weekly

Readers who can endure the juvenile sex talk at the start of Greeley's 10th Nuala Anne McGrail novel (after 2006's Irish Crystal) will be rewarded with a mildly entertaining mystery. When Nuala Anne, singer and sometime psychic, learns that Desmond Doolin, a peacenik young man from her Chicago neighborhood, has gone missing in the Middle East, she's convinced that he's still alive. But if U.S. government officials know Desmond's whereabouts, they're not talking, and finding him requires Nuala Anne and her adoring, dilettantish husband, Dermot Coyne, to research his path through the Middle East as well as pin down his relationship with the Catholic Church. Nuala Anne's search for Desmond is interwoven with the fictional memoir of an Irish diplomat in Nazi Germany, which Nuala Anne and Dermot just happen to be reading. Though this historical tale offers some intriguing counterpoints to Doolin's situation, the WWII chapters too often distract from Nuala Anne herself, who's supposed to be the star of the show. (Feb.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.