Mary M. (emeraldfire) -
Helpful Score: 1
A young unmarried woman leaves her newborn baby on the rectory doorstep of a church on Manhattan's Upper West Side. At that same moment, inside the church, a young man is in the process of stealing a treasured artifact - a chalice adorned with a single star-shaped diamond. Both the infant and the chalice subsequently disappear.
Seven years later, a few weeks before Christmas - lottery winner turned amateur sleuth - Alvirah Meehan and her husband Willy, are busy helping Willy's sister Cordelia - a nun who runs a thrift store that doubles as an after-school shelter for the neighborhood kids - prepare for the upcoming Christmas pageant. However, the shelter's future is threatened when the city condemns the building for that use. Then it is further jeopardized when the nearby brownstone to which the shelter was to be moved turns out to have been willed to a young couple who were already tenants in the building.
Convinced that something suspicious is going on, Alvirah refuses to believe that the will is genuine. She sets out to prove the couple are con artists. Soon she is involved with the mystery of the stolen chalice and child.
While this was certainly a good story and I enjoyed reading it; I'm not entirely sure what grade to give it. In my opinion, the mystery was perhaps a little simplistic, and the plot seemed slightly hurried - at least to me. I would have preferred it if this story had been slightly longer, so that the plot could be better developed and the characters better drawn and more believable. Overall, I give this book a B+!
Seven years later, a few weeks before Christmas - lottery winner turned amateur sleuth - Alvirah Meehan and her husband Willy, are busy helping Willy's sister Cordelia - a nun who runs a thrift store that doubles as an after-school shelter for the neighborhood kids - prepare for the upcoming Christmas pageant. However, the shelter's future is threatened when the city condemns the building for that use. Then it is further jeopardized when the nearby brownstone to which the shelter was to be moved turns out to have been willed to a young couple who were already tenants in the building.
Convinced that something suspicious is going on, Alvirah refuses to believe that the will is genuine. She sets out to prove the couple are con artists. Soon she is involved with the mystery of the stolen chalice and child.
While this was certainly a good story and I enjoyed reading it; I'm not entirely sure what grade to give it. In my opinion, the mystery was perhaps a little simplistic, and the plot seemed slightly hurried - at least to me. I would have preferred it if this story had been slightly longer, so that the plot could be better developed and the characters better drawn and more believable. Overall, I give this book a B+!
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