The Missing Madonna (Sister Mary Helen Series #3) » (Reprint)

SISTER CAROL ANNE O'MARIE has been a Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet for the past fifty years. She ministers to homeless women at a daytime drop-in center in downtown Oakland, California, which she co-founded in 1990. She has written ten novels featuring Sister Mary Helen.

Readers have come to delight in the murder-solving exploits of septuagenarian Sister Mary Helen, a nun with a nose for trouble. Once you meet this spry, clever sleuth, you'll want to make a habit of reading her adventures again and again.

OUR LADY VANISHES

Birds of a feather flock together, and a convention of the OWLS (Older Women's League) takes Sister Mary Helen to New York City. Aside from sightseeing and some divinely inspired workshops, she's most interested in discovering the reason behind the secretive behavior of her old friend Erma Duran. And once they return to San Francisco, Erma disappears. A religious medal left behind and a cryptic clue connected to a Byzantine Madonna send a worried Sister Mary Helen to Kate Murphy at the SFPD for help. But the wise old nun continues snooping where angels fear to tread. Now she's headed for a web of sin and sorrow...and a dangerous entanglement with death.

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"The author's handy mix of humor and suspense again proves irresistible."

-Publishers Weekly

"Sister Carol writes with sure knowledge, a deft touch."

-Houston Post

Publishers Weekly

A Novena For Murder and Advent of Dying introduced author Sr. O'Marie and her disarming amateur sleuth, Sr. Mary Helen (MH) of a Catholic college in San Francisco. In her 70s but still sharp-eyed and an incurable snoop, MH is devoutly religious and equally devoted to fighting crime. As the nun's third tale gets underway, she's just returned with her confederate, Sr. Eileen, from a meeting in Manhattan of OWL (Older Women's League). Hearing that one of the lay OWL members, widowed Erma Duran, has disappeared, MH prods Eileen into helping her investigate. They question Al Finn, who owns the apartment building where Erma has lived for years, but learn little. Nor do the sisters gain much from consulting Erma's grown children. By now, all the OWLs are worried about the absent woman, and MH descends again on her friends the police, who groan at her interference but agree to play a role in the search. Meantime, MH searches Erma's rooms and keeps tabs on her delinquent adult offspring. So the unwise old OWL is aloneexcept for a merciless adversarywhen she learns Erma's fate. The author's heady mix of humor and suspense again proves irresistible. Mystery Guild alternate. (Dec.)