Murder Cried the Padre by Rich Vincent

Thanks to Mid-South Presbytery 

Title: Murder Cried the Padre

Author: Rich Vincent 

Publisher: not known 

Source: TV series Father Dowling Investigates S3 E19 The Hardboiled Mystery 

This episode of Father Dowling Investigates starts confusingly in the style of a 1930s film noir with Sister Steve morphing into Sister Mary Catherine Ignatius, and Father Dowling as Father O’Downey (I think) with a dreadful bowler hat and a rich Irish accent. I missed the very start of the programme and was quite taken in by the realistic black and white staging. It was extra confusing as my husband was at the same time watching a completely different black and white film noir in another room.

Friend of Father Dowling, Rich Vincent, has set his book Murder Cried the Padre in the 1930s, but the plot is based on a recent murder case that has never been resolved. Sadly Rich is murdered before he can complete his book. Or is he? This is doubly unfortunate because we think he has solved the case and would have written that into his book.

Can Sister Mary Catherine Ignatius and Father O’Downey solve the murder mystery in the book? And can Sister Steve and Father Dowling solve the murder mystery in real life? Of course they can. Did you ever doubt it?

By the way, most of these TV programmes that feature fictional books; Murder She Wrote, Castle, Hart to Hart and Father Dowling Investigates, are shown when I am probably ironing, mending socks, eating my lunch or cooking dinner. I do like to have the television on in the background. I don’t search for episodes; they just pop up all over the TV schedules and many of them have been repeated multiple times. I don’t normally pay much attention, but if there’s a book I have to listen carefully.

Tony Kelly “Saint Moritz” thanks to 1stDibs