From Publishers Weekly
In her fourth appearance, Sister Joan of the order of the Daughters of Compassion returns to her Cornwall convent after surviving the dangers of a six-week retreat in a cave in Scotland, which were recounted in last year's Vow of Sanctity. Sister Joan finds the garroted corpse of a teenage girl, dressed in a wedding gown, in a one-room school on the moor. The following day another young woman, similarly dressed, is found murdered in the same manner; the postmortems determine both victims were virgins. Then Sister Hilaria, the mistress of postulants, is injured by a hit-and-run driver. While readjusting to the orderliness of daily convent life, the unsanctimonious Sister Joan, a 36-year-old former artist, aids the appealing Detective Sergeant Mill in his efforts to prevent the killer from striking again. Likely suspects include a mysterious figure seen on convent grounds; an ambitious new sergeant, just posted with his timid wife to Cornwall from Birmingham; a local man's cousin recently released from a mental institution where he had been sent for stalking young women. Sister Joan remains the most refreshing and likable of the genre's nun-sleuths even in this shallow, easily penetrated plot.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From School Library Journal
YA-Sister Joan of the Order of the Daughters of Compassion seems an unlikely sleuth, but in the fourth book in this fine series she again finds herself helping the police solve a brutal crime. Visiting her former workplace, she finds the body of a girl dressed in a bridal gown in the schoolhouse cupboard. Soon another woman dies in similar circumstances, and Sr. Joan works frantically to find the killer, who seems mysteriously linked to members of her religious community. Whether carefully questioning the strange phenomena of religious visionaries inside and outside the convent or seeking to safeguard the tinkers and their caravans on the moors from suspicion, she is always true to her own vows and to her sisters. The strong-minded nun is a realistic young woman torn between her urgent need to solve the crimes and her desire for a well-ordered religious life. The book is fast-paced and full of memorable characters, and the author skillfully portrays the dark reaches of evil that touch ordinary lives. Sr. Joan holds her own among the current wave of female detectives.
Mary T. Gerrity, Queen Anne School Library, Upper Marlboro, MDCopyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
