From Publishers Weekly
HThere's a lot to like about Edgar Award winner Heffernan's (The Dinosaur Club; Red Angel) f1fth thriller featuring Paul Devlin and his elite NYPD homicide squad. First, like Polly, Heffernan knows how to put the kettle on and keep it boiling right till the end. No mean feat. Second, his characters, however dire the circumstances, never lose their sense of humor. Even his villains, a motley and murderous crew, usually find something with which to amuse themselves as they go about their grisly work. Third, the author's people never do anything stupid. Devlin's case is the proverbial time bomb: a nun, just returned from Colombia, is found dead, her body mutilated. Apparently, she was forced to swallow condoms filled with heroin and then murdered for their retrieval. She was a member of a special, and most powerful, order in the Catholic Church, the Opus Christi, which is reluctant to cooperate with the investigation. If this weren't enough to complicate Devlin's job, Catholic priests known to have AIDS are being murdered alphabetically. How does the killer know who they were and where to find them? Devlin knows he has very little time before the press blows up the story, while the archdiocese comes down on the mayor to cover up the uglier details. Heffernan builds enough tension to have his readers squirming in their chairs. His cops are smart, his villains deliciously evil. This is the stuff we read thrillers for. Agent, Gloria Loomis. (Jan. 29)Forecast: With The Dinosaur Club currently under development by Warner Brothers, a teaser chapter in the mass market edition of Red Angel (Dec.), a regional (New England) author tour, plus possible controversy from the depiction of the Catholic Church, Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Former New York Daily News reporter Heffernan brings back his popular series hero, Inspector Paul Devlin, who must piece together a puzzle involving a dead nun (who may have been smuggling drugs in from Colombia), a murdered priest (who was dying of AIDS), and an offshoot of the Catholic Church that may be home to a conspiracy of epic proportions. It's a fascinating story, but it is occasionally marred by the author's clunky expository technique. Several early scenes are constructed so that one of the characters can supply information via lectures to the reader; these long monologues are interrupted periodically by clumsy questions, as when Devlin asks a priest to explain what he means by the term cult. Does Heffernan expect us to believe Devlin doesn't know the difference between a cult and a religious order? Clumsy exposition aside, the book is solidly plotted and decently suspenseful. There's plenty for mainstream thriller fans to enjoy, provided they can avoid being offended when Heffernan climbs atop his soapbox. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
A woman is dead, her throat and midsection viciously slashed open, a lethal dose of heroin found in her system. But what makes this grisly New York outrage different from all the others -- and tosses the "red-ball" squarely in Detective Paul Devlin's lap -- is the fact that this victim was a nun. Blistering heat is coming down from the mayor's office, One Police Plaza, and the Archdiocese, so Devlin needs to find a murderer, and fast. But suddenly walls are being made to derail an investigation that is leading Paul Devlin and his people in a shocking direction: into the secret, fortified heart of the Catholic Church itself -- and toward a terrifying conspiracy cloaked in silence, piety, and blood that extends wider than anyone ever imagined.
About the Author
William Heffernan won the 1996 Edgar Allan Poe Award for his novel Tarnished Blue. He is the author of eleven novels, including the international best-sellers The Corsican, Ritual, Blood Rose, and Corsican Honor. His novel The Dinosaur Club was a New York Times bestseller and is in development at Warner Bros. to become a motion picture. A former reporter for The New York Daily News, he lives in Huntington, Vermont, with his wife and three sons.
Unholy Order: A Paul Devlin Mystery FROM THE PUBLISHER
"In a city as huge and unpredictably dangerous as New York, murder is sadly unremarkable. A new slaying, however, has tossed the red ball squarely in Detective Paul Devlin's lap. This victim is a woman, her throat and midsection viciously slashed open, a lethal dose of heroin found in her system. But this outrage is different. This corpse was that of a nun." With the press turning the killing into a carnival - with blistering heat coming down from the mayor's office, One Police Plaza, and the Archdiocese - Devlin needs to find a murderer, and fast. But suddenly walls are being erected in his path, and powerful threats are being made to stall an investigation that is leading Paul Devlin and his people in a shocking direction: into the secret, fortified heart of the Catholic church itself - and toward a terrifying conspiracy cloaked in silence, piety, and blood.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
HThere's a lot to like about Edgar Award winner Heffernan's (The Dinosaur Club; Red Angel) f1fth thriller featuring Paul Devlin and his elite NYPD homicide squad. First, like Polly, Heffernan knows how to put the kettle on and keep it boiling right till the end. No mean feat. Second, his characters, however dire the circumstances, never lose their sense of humor. Even his villains, a motley and murderous crew, usually find something with which to amuse themselves as they go about their grisly work. Third, the author's people never do anything stupid. Devlin's case is the proverbial time bomb: a nun, just returned from Colombia, is found dead, her body mutilated. Apparently, she was forced to swallow condoms filled with heroin and then murdered for their retrieval. She was a member of a special, and most powerful, order in the Catholic Church, the Opus Christi, which is reluctant to cooperate with the investigation. If this weren't enough to complicate Devlin's job, Catholic priests known to have AIDS are being murdered alphabetically. How does the killer know who they were and where to find them? Devlin knows he has very little time before the press blows up the story, while the archdiocese comes down on the mayor to cover up the uglier details. Heffernan builds enough tension to have his readers squirming in their chairs. His cops are smart, his villains deliciously evil. This is the stuff we read thrillers for. Agent, Gloria Loomis. (Jan. 29) Forecast: With The Dinosaur Club currently under development by Warner Brothers, a teaser chapter in the mass market edition of Red Angel (Dec.), a regional (New England) author tour, plus possible controversy from the depiction of the Catholic Church, Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Publishers Weekly
HThere's a lot to like about Edgar Award winner Heffernan's (The Dinosaur Club; Red Angel) f1fth thriller featuring Paul Devlin and his elite NYPD homicide squad. First, like Polly, Heffernan knows how to put the kettle on and keep it boiling right till the end. No mean feat. Second, his characters, however dire the circumstances, never lose their sense of humor. Even his villains, a motley and murderous crew, usually find something with which to amuse themselves as they go about their grisly work. Third, the author's people never do anything stupid. Devlin's case is the proverbial time bomb: a nun, just returned from Colombia, is found dead, her body mutilated. Apparently, she was forced to swallow condoms filled with heroin and then murdered for their retrieval. She was a member of a special, and most powerful, order in the Catholic Church, the Opus Christi, which is reluctant to cooperate with the investigation. If this weren't enough to complicate Devlin's job, Catholic priests known to have AIDS are being murdered alphabetically. How does the killer know who they were and where to find them? Devlin knows he has very little time before the press blows up the story, while the archdiocese comes down on the mayor to cover up the uglier details. Heffernan builds enough tension to have his readers squirming in their chairs. His cops are smart, his villains deliciously evil. This is the stuff we read thrillers for. Agent, Gloria Loomis. (Jan. 29) Forecast: With The Dinosaur Club currently under development by Warner Brothers, a teaser chapter in the mass market edition of Red Angel (Dec.), a regional (New England) author tour, plus possible controversy from the depiction of the Catholic Church, Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
The horribly mutilated corpse of a young woman is discovered stuffed into the trunk of a car at Kennedy Airport. And it gets worse: Her body is stuffed in turn with condoms full of heroin she's swallowed in order to smuggle them into the country. Garbed as a nun, she's originally assumed to be in disguise. It's when Mayor Howie Silver gets word that the young woman actually was a nun that the call goes out for NYPD Inspector Paul Devlin and his special investigations (read: politically explosive) super team to find the killer fast and with minimum inconvenience to the Archdiocese of New York, known to savvy senior police officials as "the Powerhouse." Compounding the problem exponentially, Sister Manuela had been a postulant in the Holy Order of Opus Christi, a controversial Church sect equally famous for near-fanatical religious observance and ecclesiastical influence. Almost at once, Devlin finds himself at loggerheads with a bevy of clerical heavy-hitters who stonewall him at every turn. In the meantime, someone starts killing the city's homosexual priests in alphabetical order. Are these murders somehow part of the same case? Pontifical pressure mounts on Mayor Silver, and the ace detective comes within an inch of being replaced. He's saved only when the embattled mayor finally decides to back the Devlin he knows, paving the way for ratiocination to triumph over zealotry.
Art & Photography
Book Info
