DEATH OF A PROMINENT CITIZEN

A nun uses her sleuthing skills to solve the murder of her cousin in the 1920s.

Ireland may be free from English rule, but there’s unrest among the poor, who live in shocking conditions. At a slum clearance meeting, the Reverend Mother’s cousin Charlotte Hendrick, a slumlord, is represented by her companion/housekeeper Julie Clancy, another cousin,  who begs the Reverend Mother for help influencing Charlotte, who has announced plans to change her will. Instead of dividing her wealth equally among seven close relatives, including the Reverend Mother and Charlotte, she now proposes that whichever of them makes the best case for their use of the money will get the lot. The bishop insists that the Reverend Mother attend a meeting at Charlotte’s mansion to make a pitch even though she thinks Charlotte’s already made up her mind. On that same night, the Reverend Mother’s former pupil Eileen MacSweeney gets roped into minding the megaphone at a college demonstration that ends in a riot and the murder of a landlord not far from Charlotte’s house. When Charlotte’s throat is cut in a locked room the morning after the cousins make their pitches, the Reverend Mother calls in her old friend Inspector Patrick Cashman. Charlotte’s open window suggests the possibility that she was the victim of an outside killer. But except for the Reverend Mother and the wealthy cousin who shared her room, the others are all suspects, especially poor Julie, who might have been left penniless by the new will. Patrick follows the evidence, but the Reverend Mother has her own opinion.

A classic golden-age mystery whose shocking solution will appeal to fans of Christie and Sayers.