Customer Reviews

A Vow of Adoration (Sister Joan Mystery)

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In a chapel near her Cornish Moorís convent, Sister Joan, an experienced amateur detective of nine previous investigations, finds the corpse of a homeless man. Since her sleuthing buddies (Brother Cuthbert and Detective Mill) are both unavailable to help Joan, she begins to investigate the death of the mysterious man by herself. Adding to her non-Godly, activities is Caroline, who asks Joan to search for her missing sister Crystal. Joan starts that case by looking into the activities of the spouse, antique dealer and waxwork show owner Michael Peter.

Both cases seem to intersect with Michael. Soon a second dead body surfaces, but this time it is clearly murder. As Sister Joan digs deeper into her case(s), she risks her own life from a dangerous killer who has a personal agenda to complete.

VOWS OF ADORATION is a good who-done-it that brings the Cornish countryside to life and adds some insight into Sister Joan, within an interesting but secular story line. This particular novel's crimes, for the first time in the collection, are not linked to religion, thereby, losing the uniqueness that makes this a top rate series. Veronica Black demonstrates her tremendous writing abilities, but readers including fans wanting the true flavor of Sister Joan need to skip this worldly mystery and return to any and all of the previous eight reverent oriented who-done-its.

Harriet Klausner

A very quick read by a competent writer, but not compelling in structure or writing style. Characters are not well developed, thus pushing the reader to the edge of "suspension of disbelief." I found the ending to be unsatisfactory in that it was cheapened by introducing an unlikely element that, prior to the ending, had been neither hinted at nor introduced. It was an easy way out for the author. This one volume ensured the Sister Joan series will not end up on my "to read" list.

Sister Joan seems to be forever stumbling over dead bodies and, of course, this book is no exception. She takes the convent's horse out for an exercise run and comes across an old building which used to be a chapel. Upon investigation, she finds the dead body of a man who has no identification on him. She decides that he must be a homeless person and reports it to the police. She becomes acquainted with an antique dealer nearby and feels that some of his actions are suspicious and that he might be connected with the murder. Soon she is approached by the man's sister-in-law who expresses concern about her sister. She has not heard from her in some time and she wonders if some harm has come to her. The noose of suspicion tightens around the antique dealer and Sister Joan tries to decide what to do, since her detective friend, Alan Mill, is on vacation. The antique dealer is caught in more and more lies until Detective Mill returns and he and Sister Joan collaborate on the investigation. The ending is complicated and somewhat unexpected.