Yom Kippur Murder (Christine Bennett Mysteries) [マスマーケット]

When ex-nun Christine Bennett can't get into her friend Mr. Herskovitz's apartment to accompany him to Yom Kippur services, she discovers that he's been murdered. The police arrest someone almost immediately, but Chris isn't ready to end her own investigation . . .

Ex-nun/amateur sleuth Chris Bennett befriends three elderly tenants, the last holdouts in a bitter dispute with a landlord who wants to gut their building on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Bennett promises to take one of the tenants, Nathan Herskovitz, to synagogue on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. But when she shows up at the old man's apartment, she discovers only a bloody corpse. The police quickly arrest Jesus Ramirez, a small-time criminal with a long rap sheet and ties to the landlord. When this suspect doesn't pan out, Bennett starts digging, beginning with the dead man's estranged children and then methodically interviewing every mourner who attends Hershovitz's funeral. She soon discovers that Herskovitz had a previous family that he had kept hidden from his second family and she hears conflicting accounts of his activities during the Holocaust. Was he a hero or a man who would save the lives of the highest bidders? While the plot moves along competently enough, there are few surprises. More disappointingly, Harris ( The Good Friday Murder ) puts Bennett's past in a convent to little use beyond imbuing her with an admirable social conscience. The author also makes some mistakes regarding Jewish ritual.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

When ex-nun Christine Bennett can't get into her friend Mr. Herskovitz's apartment to accompany him to Yom Kippur services, she discovers that he's been murdered. The police arrest someone almost immediately, but Chris isn't ready to end her own investigation . . .

I always look forward to a new mystery by Lee Harris. Her novels about ex-nun Christine Bennett are in that central range between cozy and hardboiled -- the perfect balance. Ever since I encountered Christine Bennett in THE GOOD FRIDAY MURDER, which was nominated for an Edgar Award as best first novel, I've been fascinated by the author's depiction and development of her heroine -- Christine matures in surprising (but always believeable ways) as the series continues. It would be hard to pick my favorite Lee Harris mystery, but certainly among my favorites is THE CHRISTENING DAY MURDER, in which a thirty-year-old unsolved murder has impact on present-day menace.

--Joe Blades, Associate Publisher