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Summary
Summary
Henry Dolan's granddaughter, Martha Lynch, adopted 23 years earlier, wants to find her birth parents. Her adopted parents are frantic over the idea of losing her, so Henry seeks out Father Dowling for help.
Meanwhile, Martha's birth father, Nathaniel Fleck, who left before Martha's birth, has contacted Martha's real mother, Madeline, for details about Martha. Madeline panics, afraid he won't leave her alone, and turns to Amos Cadbury, a lawyer, for advice. When Nathaniel is found murdered two days later, Dowling and Amos must juggle the responsibility of spoiling the peace of the families involved while uncovering the truth behind the murder.
Blood Ties is an absorbing and suspenseful addition to this beloved series.
Author Notes
Ralph McInerny was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on February 24, 1929. He served in the Marine Corps in the late 1940s. He received a bachelor's degree from St. Paul Seminary in 1951, a master's degree from the University of Minnesota in 1952 and a doctorate in philosophy from Laval University in Quebec in 1954. He was a member of the University of Notre Dame faculty from 1955 until 2009. He gained international renown as a scholar, author and lecturer who specialized in the works of St. Thomas Aquinas. During his academic career, he was the Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies and director of the Jacques Maritain Center at the University of Notre Dame. He is founder and publisher of Catholic Dossier magazine and co-founder of Crisis magazine.
His philosophical works include Aquinas on Human Action, The Question of Christian Ethics, and Aquinas and Analogy. His novels include the Father Dowling Mystery series, an Andrew Broom Mystery series, and the Sister Mary Teresa Mystery series. He also wrote under the pseudonyms of Harry Austin, Matthew FitzRalph, Ernan Mackey, Edward Mackin, and Monica Quill. He died on January 29, 2010 at the age of 80.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The engaging 24th Father Dowling mystery (after 2004's Requiem for a Realtor) explores the moral ambiguities of the choices people make in the wake of a young woman's unwanted pregnancy. McInerny uses a full palette of nothing but grays as Martha Lynch seeks to learn the identity of her birth mother on the eve of her engagement. At the same time, Nathaniel Fleck, who turned his back on Madeline years earlier when she was pregnant, is determined to learn the fate of his child and to make amends. Almost everyone involved, from a lecherous oldster to a sleazy lawyer, shows at least a modicum of decency. And some, like Father Dowling and lawyer Amos Cadbury, both privy to Madeline's and Martha's identities, carefully weigh the one's need for secrecy and the other's for knowledge. When Fleck dies in a suspicious accident, the question becomes not only how the ramifications of Martha's parentage will play out but did someone resort to murder to keep Fleck from finding the answer? McInerny's nimble characterizations and subtle soundings of the moral issues make this a strong entry in the long-running series. Agent, Shana Cohen at the Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Father Roger Dowling solves the murder of another unwed father. Years ago, Henry and Vivian Dolan's daughter Sheila and her husband George Lynch, despondent because they couldn't have children of their own, adopted a little girl. Sheila met the baby's mother Madeline, a Northwestern coed whose boyfriend had run out on her, before Martha was born and thanked her for her gift; Madeline married Mark Lorenzo, her philosophy professor, and raised a family of her own; and Martha grew into a fine young woman, a paralegal courted by the son of one of her firm's blueblood partners. Now, just as Martha is seeking to know her birth mother so that her in-laws won't accept her simply as a Dolan or a Lynch, her birth father, novelist Nathaniel Fleck, pops up in Madeline's life full of remorse and determination to find his child. Fearing the harm her untold secret could do to her marriage, Madeline panics, but an obliging hit-and-run driver erases her problem before Fleck can do serious damage. Or does he? Following an unscrupulous and none-too-bright lawyer who's improbably hired by two different players to unearth the truth, McInerny spins a tale of decent people whose lives are roiled by secrets they never knew or thought were long buried. So absorbing are the threatened families that it's a shame when the whodunit plot finally kicks in and Father Dowling (Prodigal Father, 2002, etc.) has to extract a confession. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Father Dowling, the parish priest who seems to spend an inordinate amount of time solving crimes, returns in this intricate tale of murder and family history. The murder part is pretty straightforward: Nathaniel Fleck, who has been trying to reestablish contact with his estranged daughter (she was adopted by another couple 23 years ago), turns up dead. The rest of the story is more complicated. Fleck's daughter has been trying to find her birth parents. Fleck, her birth father, contacted the girl's birth mother (from whom he was also estranged), who then turned to a lawyer for advice. Now, Father Dowling and the lawyer, Amos Cadbury, not only have to solve Fleck's murder but they also must try to keep his death from destroying the young woman's two families. The Father Dowling mysteries have always combined mystery and morality effectively, and this one is no exception. Fans will be pleased. --David Pitt Copyright 2005 Booklist