Where Dead Men Meet

The first sentence of this uneven historical thriller from Mills (Amagansett) is a genuine attention-getter: “Had Sister Agnes been less devout, she would have lived to celebrate her forty-eighth birthday.” Late one night in 1937, at a Carthusian nunnery in England, Sister Agnes encounters an intruder who demands information about a baby boy abandoned at the nunnery’s steps 25 years earlier. Sister Agnes knows he’s referring to Luke Hamilton, whose many letters she keeps in a box beneath her bed. When she feigns ignorance, the man bludgeons her to death. Across the Channel, Luke, who’s assigned to the British embassy in Paris, is devastated by the news of the nun’s death. His world is further upended after he’s approached by a person calling himself Bernard Fautrier, which Luke assumes is an alias. At a subsequent meeting, Fautrier warns Luke that if something happens to him, Luke must disappear and take on a new identity. After this dramatic and intriguing setup, the tension gradually peters out. Memorable characters fail to redeem the so-so plot line. (May)