{"id":439,"date":"2007-03-27T20:00:44","date_gmt":"2007-03-28T04:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/?p=439"},"modified":"2016-10-12T09:29:31","modified_gmt":"2016-10-12T16:29:31","slug":"last-rites-mysteries-featuring-catholic-detectives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/last-rites-mysteries-featuring-catholic-detectives","title":{"rendered":"Last Rites: Mysteries Featuring Catholic Detectives"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For some reason there are a lot of Catholic detectives on the mystery shelves. I&#8217;m sure there are amateur detectives from other faiths (Rabbi Small, for instance), but Catholic priests and nuns seem to form their own sub-genre. Here are a few examples:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3362\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/03\/fatherbrown-215x300.jpg\" alt=\"The Penguin Complete Father Brown\" width=\"215\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/03\/fatherbrown-215x300.jpg 215w, http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/03\/fatherbrown-500x696.jpg 500w, http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/03\/fatherbrown.jpg 571w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 215px) 100vw, 215px\" \/>Father Brown<\/span> &#8211; The greatest of all ecclesial sleuths, G.K. Chesterton&#8217;s Father Brown belongs in the ranks of the great detectives with Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and Miss Marple. Chesterton&#8217;s stories are witty and clever, and very satisfying. All of his stories are collected in <a style=\"font-style: italic;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/014009766X\/nickslists-20\">The Complete Father Brown<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Brother Cadfael<\/span> &#8211; Ellis Peters&#8217; medieval monk Brother Cadfael is a former soldier who now tends the garden at Shrewsbury Abbey&#8211;when he&#8217;s not investigating mysterious deaths. I always recommend Brother Cadfael to fans of fantasy books who want to try their first mystery but don&#8217;t know where to begin. Cadfael&#8217;s stories begin with <a style=\"font-style: italic;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0446400157\/nickslists-20\">A Morbid Taste for Bones<\/a>. Also see the great <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B0000V471M\/nickslists-20\">tv series<\/a> starring Derek Jacobi.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Father Dowling<\/span> &#8211; Don&#8217;t judge this priest by the tv series. Ralph McInerny&#8217;s Fr. Dowling is a complex character written by an engaging storyteller. Highly recommended. Though most of the early Father Dowling mysteries are out of print, newer titles are still available, such as 2005&#8217;s <a style=\"font-style: italic;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B000KHXC8U\/nickslists-20\">Blood Ties<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Sister Mary Helen<\/span> &#8211; I have not had a chance to read any of Sister Carol Ann O&#8217;Marie&#8217;s mysteries featuring amateur detective Sister Mary Helen, but my wife loves this series, and that&#8217;s saying something. My wife doesn&#8217;t read very often, but she went through all of the books in the series and really enjoyed them. I love the titles: <a style=\"font-style: italic;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/031293355X\/nickslists-20\">Novena for Murder<\/a>, <a style=\"font-style: italic;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0312978677\/nickslists-20\">Advent of Dying<\/a>, <a style=\"font-style: italic;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0312984669\/nickslists-20\">The Corporal Works of Murder<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Other ecclesial sleuths include the 14th century clerk <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0747239541\/nickslists-20\">Brother Athelstan<\/a>, and the contemporary Jesuit priests <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0380784009\/nickslists-20\">Father Mark Townsend<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0425154637\/nickslists-20\">Father John O&#8217;Malley<\/a>. Have I left anyone out? Let me know by leaving a comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For some reason there are a lot of Catholic detectives on the mystery shelves. I&#8217;m sure there are amateur detectives from other faiths (Rabbi Small, for instance), but Catholic priests and nuns seem to form their own sub-genre. Here are a few examples: Father Brown &#8211; The greatest of all ecclesial sleuths, G.K. Chesterton&#8217;s Father Brown belongs in the ranks of the great detectives with Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and Miss Marple. Chesterton&#8217;s stories are witty and clever, and very satisfying. All of his stories are collected in&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[36,262,242,261,263,260,186,78],"class_list":["post-439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-book-recommendations","tag-brother-cadfael","tag-catholic-fiction","tag-father-brown","tag-father-dowling","tag-g-k-chesterton","tag-mysteries","tag-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/03\/fatherbrown.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pOucj-75","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3363,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439\/revisions\/3363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}