ALIBIS & ANGELS

A possible murder spices the 40 days of Lent for Sister Louise
LaSalle and her cohort in the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Hermione of
Ephesus.

Somebody wants Heather Stanley
out of Briar Coast—somebody who’s sending her anonymous letters calling her
“Outsider” and threatening dire consequences if she runs for re-election as the
town’s mayor. So it’s not entirely surprising when Opal Lorrie, the town’s
director of finance and management, suffers a fatal fall while she’s wearing
the coat Heather loaned her on her way to a meeting with the board of education
she’s attending in Heather’s place. It’s not surprising when Heather, who
doesn’t think deputies Fran Cole and Ted Tate, are up to the job, begs Sister
Lou, who’s already demonstrated her sleuthing chops (Peril & Prayer,
2018, etc.), to investigate. (After all, Heather is worried because “my margin
of victory over Owen Rodney was very small, not even twenty percent.”) It’s not
surprising when Sister Lou identifies Heather’s most intimate professional
associates—administrative assistant Kerry Fletcher, chief of staff Arneeka
Laguda, interim finance manager Penelope del Castillo, communications director
Tian Lu —as prime suspects. It’s not surprising that the motive for the attack
on Opal, and another on Heather herself, has roots in the past. And it’s also
not surprising that even though Sister Lou is a sister, not a cloistered nun,
she knows from Easter. Luckily, her nephew Chris’ girlfriend, Sharelle Henson,
is utterly oblivious about Catholicism even though she’s a seasoned reporter
for the Briar Coast Telegraph, where
recently hired cub reporter Harold “Don’t Call Me Hal” Beckett is thirsting for
her job. So Sister Lou has plenty of chances to explain utterly
unsurprising moral concepts and religious practices to Shari and equally
clueless readers.

The target audience, in fact, is clearly genre fans allergic to
surprises. The whole production almost makes you forget what an almighty
surprise the first Easter must have been.