Bad Samaritan: A Sister Agatha Mystery

Sister Agatha of Our Lady of Hope monastery in Bernalillo, N.Mex., sets out to clear her old college boyfriend, Sheriff Tom Green, of a murder charge in the Thurlos’ engaging sixth Sister Agatha mystery (after 2008’s The Prodigal Nun). The police suspect that the sheriff, who was running in a nasty re-election campaign against Robert Garcia, the mayor’s wealthy brother, shot Garcia in an isolated park area during a Fourth of July celebration. Green, who passed out shortly before the killing, thinks someone in on a plot to frame him drugged either the hot dog or the lemonade he was consuming. The astute, down-to-earth Sister Agatha, whose choice to become a nun the authors make persuasively real, gets on a trail that uncovers drug and spousal abuse. Hopefully, despite an impending move to Colorado, Sister Agatha will return to solve more crimes with her trusted former police dog, Pax, and the convent’s old station wagon she drives, the Antichrysler. (July)