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BISHOP AS PAWN by Ralph McInerny

BISHOP AS PAWN

By

Pub Date: Oct. 18th, 1978
Publisher: Vanguard

Case #3 for Father Roger Dowling, pastor of quiet St. Hilary's in Fox River, Illinois. After 15 years of unexplained disappearance, the husband of Father D.'s housekeeper shows up--and is promptly a corpse upstairs in the rectory, victim of a sniper. Father D. and his cop buddy Keegan dig up the dead man's secret life (he's been living nearby under a different name, bigamously remarried), but the murder case slips out of focus when an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago is kidnapped while administering the sacrament of confirmation at St. Hilary's. HIS kidnappers demand that church funds be released to feed the poor. Other socio-religious quandaries for Father D. along the way: whether to use a hymnal titled Hi God!, how to deal with rebel priests and mixed marriages. The so-so murder solution, however, is non-sectarian, as are most of the mild charms of this easygoing series.