Unholy Order: A Paul Devlin Mystery
3/5
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About this ebook
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.
William Heffernan
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.
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Reviews for Unholy Order
3 ratings1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Paul Devlin is a New York police inspector, a rank recently reinstated by the mayor for Paul who answers only to Hizzoner and who is assigned the most politically sensitive investigations. He has a small unit, including Sergeant Sharon Levy, a drop-dead gorgeous lesbian (stop snickering, at least we don't have to worry about a relationship between the two.) A nun has been found in the long-term parking lot of JFK with her belly slit open to retrieve several condoms filled with heroin she had swallowed, her throat cut. A gay priest with AIDS with his throat cut is soon also discovered and now Devlin has a PR nightmare on his hands. (The scene where Devlin and Levy face off with Matthew (his colleague is John.......wait, here come the inevitable...) is a priceless display of power.
I downgraded the book a little because it occasionally splits into two different books: one, a good police procedural and the other, ruminations on ill-considered Catholic policies toward gay priests, celibacy, etc. I think the Catholic Church is just a beached whale that doesn't realize it's out of the water, so I have no problem with the little asides, but they didn't integrate well with the rest of the story. They weren't necessary. Another example: Opus Christi in the book which is clearly intended to be Opus Dei. Again, I rather enjoy exposing both Opi for their silliness and corruption, but the characterization is a bit extreme.
Nevertheless, it was a fun story with some skimmable parts.