A Vow of Poverty

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. (Nov.)