GRAVE UNDERTAKINGS

Mimi O’Toole, about to become a widow, begs Father Dowling (The Tears of Things, 1996, etc.) to give her bullet-riddled gangster-husband absolution, and he agrees, which is the last nice thing that happens to Vincent’s body. His hearse driver is waylaid; his grave is ransacked; and when his wife, deciding to rebury him at another cemetery where the Holy Mother supposedly appears, has his coffin disinterred, it’s empty. Everyone, it seems, wants the coat he was buried in, but why? The answer lies in a set of rival suitors vying for a mob boss’s daughter, an elaborate scheme set in motion by a corrupt private eye, and a valuable holograph stolen from Salvatore Pianone’s library. Grave-diggers are murdered, Vincent’s son is strangled, Mimi has fits of weeping, and there are so many snafus that you—d think Dortmunder were on the case instead of Father Dowling, who reflects, puffs away on his pipe, gossips with his old pal Phil Keegan of the Fox River (Illinois) police, and finally ends this tale as he began it: ministering to a repentant mobster. Verging on farce, with bodies disappearing, reappearing, dressed, undressed, etc.—but McInerny, alas, stops just short of the belly laugh, although his setup craves at least one. Still: Dowling fans will undoubtedly line up for it and be satisfied with a few modest chuckles.