Vow Of Poverty (U) (Ulverscroft Large Print Series) - Hardcover

Black, Veronica

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0708937330 ISBN 13: 9780708937334

Publisher: Ulverscroft, 1997

Synopsis

The latest addition to the much praised and immensely popular Sister Joan series. The Order of the Daughters of Compassion must find a way to increase revenue, so Sister Joan is deputed to clear the rubbish out of the attic storerooms in the hope some valuable antiques might come to light. But something else lurks in the attic, leaving footprints in the dust. Down in the little Cornish town below the convent, someone walks in the deserted graveyard. The deaths of two young people and the apparent reappearance of a man who has been in his grave for over a year involve Sister Joan in one of her most chilling and dangerous assignments.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

An eighth round of dire happenings in England's minuscule religious order, the Daughters of Compassion, where plucky Sister Joan is again caught up in a series of calamities and is again acting as aide to Detective Sergeant Alan Mill (A Vow of Fidelity, p. 99, etc.). Sister Joan has been assigned by Prioress Dorothy to clear out the attic storerooms of the convent building, home for centuries to the wealthy Tarquin family and bought for a song from the estate of Sir Robert Tarquin--a punishment, according to gossip, for his ne'er-do-well son Grant, who was left little but a small house in the village. Grant, an accident victim abroad, lies next to his father in the abbey tombs. Or does he? Following up on a circular left at the convent, offering to buy scrap and old silver, Sister Joan meets answering service worker Jane Sinclair, who has never seen the man whose name is on the circular but who's much interested in a Tarquin family album borrowed from her landlady. Days later, Jane is found strangled. A second strangling victim is young Jeb, a squatter in Grant's empty house. In Sister Joan's mind, the identity of the killer is never in doubt-- confirmed by her discovery of a third body in the convent attics, the results of a long overdue exhumation order, and a final confrontation with the unsurprising killer. The usual overload of convent routine and ritual; lots of sinister lurking figures, but little suspense in a plot that edges into sheer silliness with a common-sensedefying sacrificial gesture to wind it up. The weakest link to date in this modestly diverting chain. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

She has a sharp sense of humor, a keen mind, a stubborn and inquisitive nature. She is also devout and obedient?sometimes. Sister Joan of the Order of the Daughters of Compassion makes her eighth appearance (after A Vow of Fidelity) in a cautious story that, despite the influence of her continually engaging personality, falters under massive contrivance and tortured logic. The Order, located in Cornwall, has inherited the manor house of the venerable Tarquin family, extinct now with the burial of disreputable Grant Tarquin some 18 months earlier. While Sister Joan cleans out the manor's storage areas in hopes of finding a few salable antiques, an advertising circular from "G.T. Monen, scrap merchant and silversmith" is slipped beneath the door. She sets off on his trail, unwittingly triggering a disastrous series of events that leads her to some macabre discoveries: the body of Monen's secretary; the corpse of a teenaged thug; and the grisly 25-year-old remains of a young woman locked in the convent's storeroom trunk. What is equally disturbing is that Sister Joan is being stalked?and she swears it is by Grant Tarquin himself. Joan's wry wit and shrewd observations add zest to the mystery, but wooden dialogue and an egregious deus ex machina at the end undo the novel.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ulverscroft
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0708937330
• ISBN 13: 9780708937334
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 388