The Death of an Irish Sinner: A Peter McGarr Mystery (Peter McGarr Mysteries)

Local benefactress and celebrated biographer Mary-Jo Stanton is a supplicant to death -- left lifeless on her knees in a patch of daffodils, a barbaric religious implement wrapped tightly around her neck. A clergyman has approached Peter McGarr, requesting that the Chief Superintendent quietly investigate this outrage that occurred at Barbastro, the slain grand lady's compoundlike Dublin estate. Murder is McGarr's business, but this one might be his undoing, as it draws him ever-closer to Opus Dei. A secret order of religious zealots devoted to enforcing the Lord's edicts no matter what the cost in money -- or human life -- it has ensnared the dedicated policeman in its lethal web. And now its madness is reaching out across a century to touch the place Peter McGarr is most vulnerable: the precious heart of his own adored family. A priest asks Chief Superintendent Peter McGarr if he would consider listing a death as an accident but then pursuing an investigation in secret. McGarr's refusal leads to troubles in the investigation and then to "a secret order of religious zealots called Opus Dei, a group devoted to enforcing the Lord's edicts no matter what the cost in money--or human life."--Jacket TWO WEEKS LATER in Dublin, the same woman who had visited STASI headquarters used a master key to enter the office of Francis Xavier Foley in fashionable Fitzwilliam Square.