The Bishop and the Missing L Train

The lighthearted Bishop Blackie returns with this thoroughly beguiling entry in Greeley's series detailing the misadventures of venerable Bishop John Blackwood Ryan, the erudite assistant to Sean Cardinal Cronin, archbishop of Chicago. An embarrassment to the Vatican, oafish and mean-spirited Most Reverend Augustus (Gus) Quill is appointed by Rome to Cronin's archdiocese as an auxiliary bishop, infuriating Cronin, who calls Quill by his seminary nickname: Idiot. But when the unwelcome Quill disappears, along with the L train he was riding on, the sardonic, benevolent Bishop Blackie is in charge of finding him and unraveling the mystery of why the L never arrived at the terminal. Intertwined with the Quill enigma are the dual quandaries of Tommy Flynn Jr., a young trader at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange who's smitten with Notre Dame's All-American star women's soccer captain, Christy Logan, and irresistibly sexy Jenny Carlson, an abused ex-wife of a Nobel also-ran, who is having a steamy affair with her boss. Tommy's lustful fantasies and Jenny's struggle to find happiness are waylaid when they both become suspects in the investigation, each having made public threats against the missing bishop. When Blackie finds Quill in an alley drugged with heroin, he sets out to track the villains. Bemused observers of Greeley's trademark--an arguably adolescent, definitely titillating preoccupation with soft-core sex--will not be disappointed. (July)