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This page lists novels and short story collections that feature the former seminarian turned metaphysical detective Owen Keane.

Deadstick

Terence Faherty

1991

An Owen Keane novel.

"Owen Keane, failed seminarian, once hoped to find cosmic answers in human mysteries, but he's traded that quest for a nine-to-five job at a New York law firm and a quiet life. Quiet, that is, until a cryptic request for information on an accident that took the lives of a playboy aviator and his fiancée cracks the solid earth beneath Keane's feet and pitches him once again into darkness and doubt."

Live to Regret

Terence Faherty

1992

An Owen Keane novel.

"Owen Keane, former seminarian turned metaphysical detective, is in over his head at the Jersey shore. Hired to help a grieving widower who refuses to rejoin the world, Keane finds himself in a resort town haunted by the long-ago death of a real lady in the lake. Somewhere in the town's dark past, Keane must discover the clues he needs to solve the mystery of a broken life."

The Lost Keats

Terence Faherty

1993

An Owen Keane novel.

"Owen Keane, a seminarian in the wilds of southern Indiana, is at risk of failure. When an insightful priest offers him a chance at redemption by asking him to find a runaway classmate, mystery addict Keane turns the assignment into a search for a fabulous missing sonnet, an investigation into illicit drug trade, and a harrowing confrontation with his darkest fears."

Die Dreaming

Terence Faherty

1994

An Owen Keane novel.

"At his ten-year high school reunion, Owen learns that the group of friends he'd most admired all share a dark secret. But not until the next reunion, ten years later, does he uncover the sad and ugly truth about his friends, who succumbed to the temptations and expectations of their Vietnam-era age, and have been paying the price ever since."

Prove the Nameless

Terence Faherty

1996

An Owen Keane novel.

"While working for an Atlantic City newspaper, Owen Keane is asked to investigate a twenty-year-old multiple homicide that claimed all but one member of a prominent local family. Keane's client is the sole survivor, a baby at the time of the killings and now a lost member of Generation X, as haunted by her unexplained escape as she is by the faceless threat that still hangs over her. Keane journeys into the past, uncovering a complex and dangerous trail of altered identities and secret guilt. His search leads Keane to a dual confrontation, as he must face both the murderer and his own long-held fears."

The Ordained

Terence Faherty

1997

An Owen Keane novel.

"In 1844, a religious sect founded a small town and held its breath for the Second Coming, when the faithful would be carried to heaven. One hundred and fifty years later, they're still waiting. Then three people disappear--and some think the prophecy is finally coming true. Ex-seminarian turned sleuth Owen Keane thinks there's a more corporeal explanation, something to do with a convicted killer's parole hearing--because there's nothing very divine about a cold body in a shallow grave."

Orion Rising

Terence Faherty

1999

An Owen Keane novel.

"Ex-seminarian Owen Keane, pursuer of life's mysteries, returns to Boston College, his alma mater, and to the scene of an old crime...and a new one. His longtime friend, James Courtney Murray, has been murdered, and DNA evidence has linked Murray to a twenty-five-year-old unsolved rape. Driven by his own knowledge of what happened that night in 1969, Owen seeks to clear his friend's name, while forcing himself to revisit the past that haunts him still."

The Confessions of Owen Keane

Terence Faherty

2004

Owen Keane short stories.

"six short stories and a novella from the casebook of failed seminarian turned investigator Owen Keane. Called a "metaphysical detective" by the New York Times and "the ultimate amateur sleuth" by the Drood Review, Keane is a compulsive solver of mysteries. These mysteries can be as public as gang murder and gun running or as private as the loss of faith. But whether the stakes involved are large or small, these tales all feature the hallmarks of Faherty's novels: meticulous plotting, offbeat twists, and what the Philadelphia Inquirer called 'a prose style that's a pleasure to spend time with'."

Eastward in Eden

Terence Faherty

2013

An Owen Keane novel.

"Two years after witnessing a devastating suicide, Owen Keane, metaphysical detective, travels to rural Kenya, hoping to lose himself where no one will think to look for him. Instead, he finds another mystery: the murder of charismatic stranger who claimed to be the reincarnation of a long dead warrior hero. To solve the mystery of his own future, Keane must pay for a life with a life."