A Cardinal Offense: A Father Dowling Mystery [Hardcover]

Ralph M. McInerny (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1994

When a friend gives him tickets to the Notre Dame-USC football game and a Vatican cardinal asks to meet him there for a conference, Father Dowling travels to Indiana, where the visiting cardinal is kidnapped during the game.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the 17th Father Dowling mystery (following Seed of Doubt), McInerney delivers a history of the American Catholic Church's stand on marriage and separation, the Vatican's view of this stance and some varying attitudes of priests and laity. Suspense suffers from the process. A man, pursuing an annulment, and his wife, who is opposed, meet separately with Fr. Dowling in St. Hilary's rectory on the same day that the priest receives two surprise tickets to the next Notre Dame-Southern California football game. The husband says his wife was never really a Catholic; she insists that the 30-year marriage and the couple's grown children remain valid. After the man is murdered, Dowling and his cop friend Phil Keegan consider possible suspects, including the victim's brother-in-law, who has been arrested for the crime, and the couple's son, a religious fanatic who has confessed to the murder. Dowling, who has agreed to attend a meeting of the Bishop's Committee on Marriage and the Family in return for the tickets, has misgivings as game day approaches. With a heavy hand, McInerny intertwines the two plots in a tale likely to disappoint the good father's most ardent fans.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

After 16 installments, McInerny's Father Dowling series has shown signs of growing long in the tooth. This latest, in which Father D. comes to the rescue of a visiting cardinal kidnapped during a college football game, may contain enough popular elements to revive the series.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 372 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; 1st edition (November 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312112831
• ISBN-13: 978-0312112837
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,784,748 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the better entries in an outstanding series, August 8, 2003

By 

Daniel L Pratt (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Cardinal Offense: A Father Dowling Mystery (Hardcover)

The editorial reviews, collectively, are partly inaccurate and, even worse, give away too much. Suffice it to say that this book sees the return of many familiar characters and the introduction of intriguing new ones in a complex plot that takes place partly at Notre Dame, where the author teaches philosophy. Intermingled are numerous thoughtful philosophical asides.

However, don't buy this for the climactic football game. There must be a half dozen implausibilities in McInerny's account -- but he describes impossible games in other novels too. This book is not about football.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Mystery, Great Characters, March 28, 2006

By 

Kevin M. Cherry "Kevin" (South Bend IN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Cardinal Offense: A Father Dowling Mystery (Hardcover)

The mystery elements of this Fr. Dowling novel aren't quite up to par with the best of the genre (they aren't even as good as some of McInerny's own work). But the characters are compelling, life-like, and well-drawn. The real mystery isn't in who killed/kidnapped whom, but in figuring out the real-life counterparts to the main characters, some of whom are thinly-veiled, others who are barely-veiled, and still others who are well-disguised. Anyone who's been a student at Notre Dame in the past twenty years has a considerable advantage, of course.

McInerny does a fairly decent job of portraying the annullment problems within the Church. He has a perspective, of course, but it's not one that is easily dismissed as reactionary, unlike some other views. As with divorce, single-parent families, and a variety of other social problems, there are--regardless of the intentions and circumstances--consequences for the individual people involved.