Sister Carol Anne O’Marie. Requiem at the Refuge (2000) 288 pp.
After Sister Cecilia dies in her sleep, Sister Patricia replaces her as the president of San Francisco’s Mount St. Francis College. Sister Patricia has a reputation for bringing in new blood. This frightens eighty-year old Sister Mary Helen, who is not ready to retire. Rather than wait to be fired, Sister Mary Helen resigns and begins working at The Refuge, a center for battered and homeless women. The manager of the Refuge, Sister Anne. strongly feels that her friend Sister Mary Helen can contribute. Everyone in the convent knows that where Sister Mary Helen goes, homicides follow. The Refuge proves that theory as Sister Mary Helen finds the murdered corpse of a prostitute named Melanie. A few hours earlier, Melanie had blurted out the names of people who she feared. Detectives Gallagher and Murphy begin to investigate knowing full well that Sister Mary Helen will do her own sleuthing.

H.K.