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This page lists novels by Carol Anne O'Marie.

Novena for Murder

Sister Carol Anne O'Marie

1984

A Sister Mary Helen novel.

"Sister Mary Helen isn't ready for retirement. Instead she's arrived at a San Francisco women's college to teach history and perhaps shake things up. An earthquake does that before she can, and amid the rubble lies a body. An 'Act of God' is not responsible for the death, but rather murder. One of Sister Helen's fellow nuns begins a novena to St. Dismas, 'the Good Thief' predicting the saint will reveal the murderer within nine days. Sure enough the police soon nab a suspect...but Sister Mary Helen believes it's the wrong man and begins her own pursuit of the killer. Her motive is justice...and her inspiration, simply divine."

Advent of Dying

Sister Carol Anne O'Marie

1986

A Sister Mary Helen novel.

"Timid little Suzanne Barnes was the perfect ecclesiastical secretary: efficient, discreet, self-effacing. So it came as a shock when Suzanne invited Sisters Mary Helen, Eileen and Anne to Ghiradelli Square's Sea Wench Bar to hear her belt out the blues. Sister Mary Helen wondered what secrets lay behind those watery blue eyes. The Sea Wench Suzanne was a revelation: sassy, sexy, dressed to kill. It was her first-and last-performance, punctuated by a silver letter opener in the heart. Who killed the canary? Sister Mary Helen and her faithful band must unearth Suzanne's secrets to solve the murder before all hell breaks loose-again."

The Missing Madonna

Sister Carol Anne O'Marie

1988

A Sister Mary Helen novel.

"Sister Mary Helen is sinfully good at snooping through the San Francisco fog. Now a fellow OWL (Older Woman's League) member has disappeared. The police believe Erma Duran simply flew the coop, but Sister feels a Higher Authority pushing her to investigate. A gold medal entangled in Erma's bedsprings and a cryptic clue to a Byzantine madonna deepens the mystery. By the time Police Inspector Kate Murphy joins the hunt, Sister's good intentions have already paved her way straight to the Mission District--and a hellish encounter with sudden death."

Murder in Ordinary Time

Sister Carol Anne O'Marie

1991

A Sister Mary Helen novel.

"Just one bite of that irresistible Christmas cookie and Christina Kelly, Channel 5's leading investigative reporter, was on the air--dead. The odor of bitter almond told Sister May Helen the cause of the death: cyanide. Somewhere in the studio was the wily killer; it was a person everyone knew. Had Christina's investigations led her to her dead end? Or was the fatal cookie meant for someone else: the notorious womanizer; the hard-drinking floor manager with something to hide; or perhaps Wicked Wendy, who certainly fit her nickname? Or was the intended victim the intrepid nun herself? Heaven help her as Sister Mary Helen charges in where angels fear to tread to trap a killer before he strikes again."

Murder Makes a Pilgrimage

Sister Carol Anne O'Marie

1993

A Sister Mary Helen novel.

"Vivacious and outgoing, Lisa Springer is the most unlikely member of the free pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, the birthplace of Christianity in Spain. And Sister Mary Helen soon has reason to suspect the auburn-haired knockout knows the other members of the tour group—and some of their ugliest secrets—all too well. So when Lisa is discovered strangled to death in a saint’s crypt, Sister Mary faces no end of likely suspects—from Lisa’s dangerously disaffected “best friend” to the group’s charming, unreliable guide and the mild-mannered professor with a relentlessly snobbish wife. And when Sister Mary Helen becomes the target of a number of frightening 'accidents,' she and Sister Eileen must race to uncover Lisa’s past and expose a clever killer hellbent on prematurely sending one sleuthing nun to her heavenly reward."

Death Goes on Retreat

Sister Carol Anne O'Marie

1995

A Sister Mary Helen novel.

"Sister Mary Helen and her Irish friend, Sister Eileen, need some R&R away from the pressures of their inner city vocation. A week at the idyllic St. Colette’s Retreat House, snuggled amid towering redwoods 65 miles from San Francisco, sounds like heaven. Unfortunately the muddled sisters mistakenly arrive a week too early and find that St. Colette’s is hosting a convention of hard-drinking, high-spirited priests. And when the serenity is further shattered by the murder of a former seminary student, suspicion falls on the holy fathers. But Sister Mary Helen has another theory about the perpetrator, and in her inimitable way she intends to uncover the deadly secrets and passions that the flesh is heir to."

Death of an Angel

Sister Carol Anne O'Marie

1997

A Sister Mary Helen novel.

"It is a rainy Feast of All Souls and feisty Sister Mary Helen, the Bay City’s famous crime-fighting nun, has nothing more on her mind than helping Angelica Bowers, the troubled young woman who works in the library of Mount St. Francis College. Unfortunately, her plans are shattered when dear Gemma Burke, one of her oldest friends, becomes the latest victim of a serial rapist-murderer. Sister Mary Helen realizes that the San Francisco police, despite their furious protests, need a little divine intervention—so she and her sidekick, Sister Eileen, set off after Gemma’s killer. But little do the devout detectives know that they are walking into an intricate web of evil woven by a cold-blooded killer."

Death Takes Up a Collection

Sister Carol Anne O'Marie

1998

A Sister Mary Helen novel.

"Monsignor Joseph Higgins liked, along with wine and women, the finer things in life-so much so that he may have dipped into the church funds to finance his good tastes. But would that be reason enough to kill the crooked clergyman? Someone had poisoned the pastor-and there was no shortage of likely suspects, from his surly housekeeper to several prominent parishioners. Now Sister Mary Helen and Sister Eileen must delve into this sacrilegious slaying and bring a killer to justice."

Requiem at the Refuge

Sister Carol Anne O'Marie

2000

A Sister Mary Helen novel.

"How do you make God laugh? Tell Him you’ve got a plan. That’s what Sister Mary Helen reminds herself when she sets out to start a new life—as a volunteer in a women’s homeless shelter. A savvy octogenarian with an adventurous streak, Mary Helen is no stranger to the shady side of San Francisco’s hilly streets. So when a young resident at the Refuge shelter is found dead, Mary Helen makes it her business to solve the murder. Soon this lady of the Order gets herself into a holy mess involving corrupt local politicians, a prostitution ring, and a tangled web of private-eyes, police officers, and the “refugees” themselves. Mary Helen calls upon her beloved sisters at St. Francis College for salvation, but it’s going to take a lot of prayers to protect Mary Helen from the dangerous characters—and shocking confessions—that come in her wake."

The Corporal Works of Murder

Sister Carol Anne O'Marie

2002

A Sister Mary Helen novel.

"On the feast of St. Francis Caracciolo, Sister Mary Helen finished chanting the Corporal Acts of Mercy-"...to feed and shelter the homeless, visit the sick, and bury the dead"-before she went to work at The Refuge, a San Francisco women's shelter. Immediately she wondered about a pretty new visitor, suspiciously too well kept to be down and out. Only a few minutes later, Mary Helen found the mysterious woman shot and dying on the sidewalk. The police don't want an old nun meddling in the case, but that doesn't stop Mary Helen from snooping around and discovering the victim's true identity. And when Mary Helen discovers two more bodies, it's the police who may be confessing their need of a sharp-witted Sister with connections to a Higher Authority."

Murder at the Monks' Table

Sister Carol Anne O'Marie

2006

A Sister Mary Helen novel.

"Sister Mary Helen is in luck, depending on how you look at it. She and Sister Eileen are in Ireland to attend the weeklong Oyster Festival in the little village of Ballyclarin. They make their first stop at a central oasis of food and drink called the Monks' Table. Mary Helen overhears a woman saying to the man with her, 'I am surprised someone hasn't killed you already.' But Eileen assures her that it's only a way of speaking, and Mary Helen is relieved - until the next night, when she finds the same man in the pub's ladies' room, murdered. Mary Helen's reputation for sleuthing follows her across the Atlantic, and the Irish police warn her not to get involved. She has every intention of leaving this case in the hands of the authorities, but sometimes Fate will just not listen to reason."

Like A Swarm Of Bees

Carol Anne O'Marie

2006

"You will spread everywhere, like a swarm of bees, Abbe Piron told the Sisters of St. Joseph, shortly before they left their native France for the New World. Sister Carol Anne brings the American adventure to life through the eyes of Sister St. Protais, one of the original six missionaries."