Customer Reviews

Bad Faith: A Sister Agatha Mystery (St. Martin's Minotaur Mysteries)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Once she was known as Mary Naughton, an investigative reporter, but a tragic event in her life set her on a new path. She is now known as Sister Agatha an extern nun living in the cloistered monastery of the Sisters of the Blessed Adoration in Bernalillo, New Mexico. She is one of two nuns who have contact with the outside world while the rest of the sisters remain isolated dealing only with one another.

One day when Father Anselm is giving the sacrament to the nuns, he has a seizure and dies. At first everyone thinks he had a heart attack but it isn't long before it is discovered that he has been poisoned. It is unthinkable to Sister Agatha that anybody from the monastery could have done such a horrendous deed but she uses the skills she obtained as a reporter to prove to the police that the nuns are innocent of committing murder.

Readers get an insider's look at a cloistered monastery and will find themselves fascinated by a group of gentle women who have chosen to cut themselves off from the world. The audience will find it very entertaining to see the heroine piece together who did it and why. The Thurlos have another winning series to their credit.

Harriet Klausner

"Bad Faith" was interesting enough to hold my attention. I
liked most of the characters - even the sheriff once he stopped
only being angry about the past. The author did a good job
of introducing and explaining bits of things about what goes on
in a convent, and why some women still choose to live the life
of a nun.

These two authors have written a number of series, most of which I find very strange, but one of the most recent features Sister Agatha, an extern nun for a cloistered order. These are cozy murder mysteries and I found the first one, Bad Faith, highly enjoyable (haven't gotten around to reading the rest yet). Sister Agatha was a journalism professor before becoming a nun and when a murder brings suspicion to their monastery, the Reverend Mother asks Sister to work with the police to try to keep as much as possible away from the cloister. Sister Agatha and the other nuns of her order (including a novice and a postulant) are all wonderful characters with interesting depths. The story line keeps you interested - both the murder investigation and Sister's own spiritual journey. This is just the kind of book I love - suspense and Christian spirituality teamed with great characters.

This is the first novel in a mystery series featuring a nun named "Sister Agatha". While the story is intriguing enough to hold interest and the characters are appealing you should be aware that the Kindle version of the book has many, many paragraphs out of order some obviously even in different chapters than where they belong. Amazon, or whoever was doing the conversion of the book, needed to do more careful proofreading before releasing the kindle edition.
That said the book itself is well worth reading but I'd stick to a paper edition for now.

At first,I didn't like this book at all. Then I couldn't put it down.After I finished it I wanted more of Sister Agatha

I loved this first book of a mystery series featuring a nun as the amateur detective. I loved reading about Sister Agatha herself, who in addition to being a nun, is a feisty, motorcycle-riding, mechanically inclined woman who was formerly a teacher and investigative reporter. I also loved the setting, Sister Agatha's isolated convent in an old farmhouse in New Mexico, and I adored the German Shepherd police dog who assigned himself the task of protecting Sister Agatha and her cloister. That there was a mystery to solve was just icing on the cake. I look forward to reading more in the series.

#1 Sister Agatha mystery set in a cloistered monastery in New Mexico. When the monastery's chaplain collapses and dies during a Mass at the monastery and it's later determined by the coroner to be poison, the sisters are the obvious first choices for suspects. Sister Agatha is one of only two externs--nuns who deal with the outside world--and she is absolutely certain that it wasn't anyone within the cloister who would harm the priest they all revered. When the local sheriff--an old flame of Sister Agatha's from school days--seems determined to disrupt the cloister's life and routine, she is just as determined to investigate and find the real culprit so they can get back to normal.

I did figure the mystery out well in advance, but wasn't sure of the whys and wherefores, just knew 'who' had done it. I wasn't sure I'd like this book--in fact I started reading it because I was looking to do a bit of a culling from my TBR. But even though it's in a religious setting and there are parts where I tended to roll my eyes, mostly I was just able to see Sister Agatha as a human being. I think she had me hooked in the first chapter when she revealed her name for the old, rickety, frequently-broken-down car the monastery owned--the Antichrysler. LOL! Anyway, it was an overall enjoyable book and I likely will read at least a couple more in the series to see if my enjoyment continues.

I discovered this series by serendipity recently, on the shelf of my local bookstore. When I saw that the main character is a nun, Sister Agatha, who drives a classic Harley Davidson motorcycle with her German Shepherd retired police dog in the sidecar, I had to read it.
Sister Agatha is an extern nun, who deals with the public for the cloistered nuns in the small monastery, Our Lady of Hope.
This book has a mystery to solve and gave me a welcome peek into how cloistered nuns live, so I can understand a bit about the beauty of their vows and way of life. Meanwhile Sister Agatha tools around the countryside as she tries to solve a murder in the monastery, and she even braves a biker bar to rescue someone.
I look forward to the second book "Thief in Retreat."

Sister Agatha is the beguiling heroine of this series. Formerly an investigative reporter, she is now an extern nun, one who interfaces with the outside world on behalf of Our Lady of Hope Monastery. Aimee and David Thurlo infuse this book with gentle humor, such as giving the ancient vehicle Sister drives the nickname of "Anti-Chrysler". They also spin an interesting mystery which involves the sudden death of Father Anselm who is the chaplain for the monastery. Sister Agatha is asked to use the investigative skills she developed while she was a reporter, but in doing so she is sometimes at cross purposes with Sheriff Tom Green whom she dated before entering the cloister. This is an interesting and well-written first novel that promises good things to come.

This first book in the Sister Agatha series has the earmarks of a first novel in a series in that it is lacking in character development but has all the components of a good story. Nuns make pretty good sleuths and convents tend to be inherently mysterious, partially because they are cloistered away from society. The Thurlos hit the mark with the right amount of sub-mysteries (those mini-plots you need as diversions from the main Whodunit); false leads (proving the prime suspect innocent); and an interesting sleuth. When the protagonist is a nun, there is a reconciling of past and present lives that is the most interesting. While we get SOME of that with Sister Agatha, we don't get nearly enough.
In addition to wanting more of Agatha's back story (no doubt revealed in later books in the series), the lack of physical description of any of the characters was particularly vexing in the case of the Reverend Mother who, unlike most of the other featured nuns, seems to have very little history or personality beyond her wisdom. I felt in this respect, and in some of the revealed secrets of the convent, the authors relied on too many clichés. The Thurlos work arduously to present an accurate portrait of modern convent life, but it comes across as proselytising, particularly when put forth through Agatha's thoughts about and conversations with Sheriff Tom Green.
I wanted Agatha to be more spunky. Her upbraiding of Tom Green became tiresome, as it was too one-sided. Supposedly he's a good guy and we are supposed to sympathize with him because his wife is an over-protective shrew, but he is definitely postured as the quasi-enemy. The gradual peace accord between Sister Agatha and Tom doesn't really work because their relationship doesn't follow any kind of rhythm. The character of Tom Green presents an excellent opportunity for complexity, and I hope this is further developed in later offerings in the series.
All that said, there is something unavoidably whimsical and entertaining about a nun with a broken vehicle (irreverently called the "Anti-Chrysler"), who rides a Harley without a second thought, and plays billiards. In some respects, it is probably a good thing that the Thurlos chose not to show more of their hand in regard to Sister Agatha's character. They crafted a mystery that is good enough to get me to read the next in the series.