The Bishop at the Lake (A Blackie Ryan Mystery)
Andrew M. Greeley
St. Martin's Press
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780765355027
Summary
Matters of succession lead to attempted murder in the latest of Greeley’s popular mysteries.
Archbishop Malachi Nolan has designs on the Diocese of Chicago despite the fact the Most Reverend Blackwood Ryan, himself recently appointed an archbishop, is currently in line for the post. Assigned to keep watch on his rival, Blackie travels to the Nolan family estate in Grand Banks, where he soon finds himself immersed in an entirely different dynastic struggle.
Spike Nolan, founder of Aviation Electronics, isn’t even dead yet, but his children, grandchildren, and their respective spouses are already feuding over who will inherit control of the multimillion-dollar company. The only family member who doesn’t have a stake in the quarrel is the clerical Malachi... so why is he the one targeted by an unknown killer?
To get to the bottom of the mystery, Blackie will have to sort through the tangled family dynamics of this highly dysfunctional clan, as well as figure how out his fellow archbishop was nearly stung to death by hornets inside a locked room!. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—February 5, 1928
• Where—Oak Park, Illinois, USA
• Education—A.B., S.T.B.,* L.S.T.,** Mary of the Lake
Seminary; M.A., Ph.D., University of Chicago.
• Currently—lives in the Chicago, Illinois area
The reverend Father Andrew M. Greeley is an Irish-American Roman Catholic priest, sociologist, journalist and best selling author.
Father Greeley is Professor of Sociology at the University of Arizona and is a Research Associate with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago. He writes a weekly column for the Chicago Sun-Times and contributes regularly to the New York Times, the National Catholic Reporter, America, and Commonweal. He has given numerous interviews on radio and television.
After studies at Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary in Chicago, he received an AB from St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Chicago in 1950, a Bachelor of Sacred Theology (STB) in 1952, and a Licentiate of Sacred Theology (STL) in 1954, when he was ordained. From 1954 to 1964 he served as an assistant pastor at Christ the King parish in Chicago, during which time he studied sociology at the University of Chicago. He received a Master of Arts in 1961 and then a PhD in 1962. His doctoral dissertation dealt with the influence of religion on the career plans of 1961 college graduates.
At various times Greeley was a professor at the University of Arizona, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Chicago.
Father Greeley had many other honors and awards bestowed upon him, such as honorary degrees from the University of Arizona and Bard College, New York state, and the National University of Ireland in Galway. In 1981, Father Greeley received the F. Sadlier Dinger Award, which is presented each year by educational publisher William H. Sadlier, Inc. in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the ministry of religious education in America.
His fiction often deals with romances, including details of sexual encounters, typically written with underpinnings of a theology based on what theologian David Tracy calls the Catholic "analogical imagination", in which human love serves as a metaphor for the love of God for humankind. They reveal the author’s strong attachment to Irish culture: indeed, Greeley perhaps illustrates the Irish maxim that people from other countries of Irish descent are "More Irish than the Irish themselves". His major characters tend to be Irish-American Catholics from Chicago, and one example of this is John Blackwood "Blackie" Ryan, a mystery-solving clergyman (first priest, later auxiliary bishop, most recently Archbishop of Chicago), who is apparently one of Greeley's alter egos and who is sometimes compared with G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown.
Father Greeley's first work of fiction to become a major commercial success was The Cardinal Sins (1981). He then put out the Passover Trilogy: Thy Brother's Wife (1982), Ascent into Hell (1983), and Lord of the Dance (1984). After that, he wrote on average a minimum of two novels per year. In 1987 alone he produced four novels and two works of non-fiction. He labels himself as "a smart-aleck, in other words, and a glib smart-aleck who can be dangerously humorous and even pugnacious when someone tries to put him down". His literary output has been such that it has been said that he "has never had an unpublished thought."
At the height of the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal, Father Greeley wrote The Priestly Sins (2004), a novel about a young priest from the Plains States who is exiled to an insane asylum and then to an academic life because he reports abuse that he has witnessed. His book, The Making of the Pope (2005) was intended as a follow-up to his The Making of the Popes 1978. This was a first hand account of the coalition building process by which Joseph Ratzinger ascended to the papacy as Benedict XVI. In 1996, his novel White Smoke described the scenario of the election of a new Pope. The author has also dabbled in science fiction, writing the novels God Game and The Final Planet. His book entitled A Stupid, Unjust, and Criminal War: Iraq 2001–2007 (2007), evaluates and presents the logic of the rush to start the Iraqi War by the Bush administration and its consequences for the United States.
Income generated from the sale of his books has been used to fund many charitable organizations. For example, In 1986, Father Greeley established a $1 million Catholic inner-city School Fund, providing scholarships and financial support to schools in the Chicago Archdiocese with a minority student body of more than 50 percent. In 1984, he contributed a $1 million financial endowment to establish a chair in Roman Catholic Studies at the University of Chicago. He also funds an annual lecture series, "The Church in Society," at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, Mundelein, Illinois, from which he received his S.T.L. in 1954. He is pro-life but his political positions tend to agree mostly with those of the Democratic Party.
Father Greeley is an ardent supporter of the Chicago Bears, Bulls and the Cubs.
He suffered a fractured skull and left orbital bone near his eye in a fall on November 7, 2008 in Rosemont, Illinois, when his clothing got caught on the door of a taxi as it pulled away. He was hospitalized in critical condition, and recovered at home in the care of his family. (From Wikipedia.)
* S.T.B. —Bachelor of Sacred Theology
** L.S.T. —Licentiate of Sacred Theology
Book Reviews
In Greeley's winning sixth Blackie Ryan novel (after 2006's The Bishop in the Old Neighborhood), Ryan's boss, the archbishop of Chicago, sends Ryan to check up on Malachi Howard-Nolan, a fellow priest who's jockeying for a prestigious appointment. Blackie heads out to the compound where Nolan's extended family has gathered for a reunion and discovers that matters are both simpler and more complex than he'd imagined. Nolan turns out to be obnoxious and ambitious, but also lazy and incompetent, so his ecclesiastical aspirations aren't likely to come to much. When Nolan suffers a life-threatening attack of hornets, Blackie suspects someone in his rich, nutty family wishes him ill. There's also romance afoot: Blackie's strapping nephew finds himself attracted to Nolan's charming niece. A few chapters narrated by the nephew jar, but strong character development, snappy dialogue and a multilayered plot make this one of the better entries in the series.
Publishers Weekly
Blackie Ryan returns in another predictable but fun Chicago-based whodunit featuring the usual amalgamation of stereotypical Irish-American characters.... [A] puzzling locked-room mystery.... Nothing new here, but most Greeley fans won't want or expect anything beyond this comfortably familiar plot. —Margaret Flanagan
Booklist
Bishop Blackie confronts another locked-room mystery, this one with hornets. Chicago's coolest cleric is dispatched to posh Grand Beach, enclave of the rich and contentious Nolan clan, under orders to sniff around. The recent, possibly sneaky behavior of Archbishop Malachi Nolan, son of the progenitor, has piqued the interest of Sean Cardinal Cronin, Blackie's boss. Ever alert to the surge of others' ambition, the Cardinal is concerned about the precise shape of Malachi's. Opportunities for sniffing, however, vanish when Malachi is ferociously attacked. His whole family knows Malachi's unfortunate history with hornets, whose bites have led to severe allergic reactions. Someone has managed to introduce and unleash a swarm of them into the locked room in question, and the result is nearly lethal. Is it a case of attempted murder? Is the Pope Catholic? "Well, you better solve that locked-room mystery, or your perfect record will be ruined," the Cardinal enjoins Blackie, who solves it, of course—as will many, many readers, since it's not all that mysterious. Or interesting. As for the internecine war among the Nolans, here too the author has done better. As usual, Father Greeley serves up heaping helpings of the Irish goo (Irish Linen, etc.) that his audience has always found yummy.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Bishop at the Lake:
1. What is the reason Blackie's boss sends him to Grand Beach? Does the intrigue and plotting surrounding church politics surprise you?
2. What is wrong with this family! Describe the characters and dynamics of the Nolan family members, starting with Spike and his wife, Lady Anne, as well as their children and respective spouses and children. Who is your least favorite?
3. Everyone knows, of course, who the favorite is...but some claim that Margaret is too perfect? Agree or not?
3. What is the rivalry about between Margaret and her mother? Why has her mother worked to set the others against her own daughter?
4. Author Greeley establishes a contrast between two families —the Nolans and his own family, which includes his sister, brother-in-law, and nephew Joseph. Talk about the differences between the Nolans and Murphies.
5. Why does Blackie come to believe that Malachi Nolan is not much of a rival?
6. Greeley weaves questions of faith throughout his stories. Talk about the references in this novel to the Papal encyclical, God is Love. What does Greeley mean when he says that human passion is a sacrament reflecting God's love? And how does the meaning of forgiveness play out in this novel?
7. This is a "locked room" mystery. Were you puzzled about how the hornets were let loose—or who let them loose—in the closed room? Or was it obvious? What about the why?
8. Good mysteries usually have "red herrings"—false leads to throw both characters and readers off the scent. What are the red herrings in this novel—and how skillfully were they deployed? How susceptible were you to the misleading clues?
9. Were you satisfied by the way the mystery ended—did you find the outcome surprising or predictable? Was it a compelling story, one that kept you turning pages? Or did you find it difficult to become engaged?
10. Have you read other books in the Blackie Ryan series? If so, how does this one compare to the others? Is it fun to revisit the same characters, notably Blackie and his sister's family? If this is your first Blackie Ryan book, are you inspired to read others?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use the, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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