Bad Faith: A Sister Agatha Mystery

Bad Faith: A Sister Agatha Mystery by Thurlo, Aimée. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780312290818.

Sister Agatha is one of the two extern nuns in a cloistered order in the Our Lady of Hope Monastery in the New Mexico desert. As an extern, it is her role to be the link between the order and the outside world. On most days, that means picking up supplies in the "Anti-Chrysler," the orders aging, ailing station wagon, providing support to the priest who is the chaplain to the order and dealing with the business of the monasterys scriptorium. Her not-exactly quiet life is shattered, however, when the orders chaplain, Father Anselm, comes to the monastery to celebrate mass with the nuns but dies suddenly and mysteriously while consecrating the host. The local constabulary, in the person of Sheriff Tom Green, is convinced it was murder and that it was an inside job - that he used to date Sister Agatha many years ago before she took the veil only serves to make her job as extern all the more complicated. Determined to protect the cloistered sisters, yet fearful that the sheriff might well be right about one of them being somehow involved, Sister Agatha must use the skills from her former life and unravel the many puzzles surrounding Father Anselms death. As the mystery deepens and time is running out, it soon becomes clear that the answer lies closer to Sister Agatha than she could have ever believed.