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Publication Date: August 20, 2021

Publisher: Independently Published
Genre: Fiction > Literary > Crime

ISBN:  979-8539855741

List Price: $14.49 USD Trade Paperback

Page Count: 328 pages

Audience: Adult

Infidelity and murder turn a couple’s life upside down in Delehanty’s stellar novel. It was in the early fall of 1956 when Melvin Hobson was found hanging on a tree branch and Barnaby Shea, the new priest at St. Canice Parish, was accused of abusing the young boy that led to his suicide. Now thirty years later, Barnaby is no longer a priest and is content living a quiet life with his wife Mary. When old accusations resurface in the form of a class action suit against the Archdiocese and a threatened civil allegation against the ex-priest, Barnaby knows he must clear his name once and for all. He approaches John Laney, a legal investigator and Melvin’s best friend. Together the pair begins to look into the mystery surrounding the suicide, unaware their investigation will unravel a sinister secret. Delehanty is skilled when it comes to balancing the plot and the characters, and the dynamic between his intriguingly flawed characters, particularly Barnaby and Mary, is authentic. Alternating between two different timelines, the swift narrative places readers right in the middle of the quaint town. The story is ripe both with anticipation and emotion. Barnaby and John’s investigation into Melvin’s suicide drives the plot, but it’s the human drama at the center of the protagonists’ lives that makes this book worth spending time with. Full of reflections on intricacies of marriage and relationships, friendship, perseverance, faith, and how a single event of the past has this ability to shape a person’s life and lives of those around him, this page-turning mystery makes for a must-read.

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