by Sarah Terzo

Created on: December 28, 2008

The Widow's Mate is a Father Dowling mystery which features characters from the television series. It takes place in the little town of Fox River and has a cast of characters including Father Dowling, who is the priest in charge of the small parish of St. Hillary's, his loyal housekeeper Marie Murton, and other members of the town. Featuring prominently in this mystery are Dowling's friend and local lawyer Amos Cadbury, police officer Cy Horvath, and a humorously incompetent lawyer named Tuttle.

St. Hilary's runs a senior center, and Melissa Flanagan, a widow, attends. A decade earlier, her husband, the wealthy Wally Flanagan, disappeared. Though widely believed to have run off with his mistress, Wally's body was later found wedged inside a cement mixer belonging to the Flanagan family business. There are, obviously, many unanswered questions concerning his death. Who killed Wally, and why? Also, where was Wally in the years between his disappearance and his murder? Is his murder connected to the shady crime family that is moving in on Flanagan Concrete? These questions were left unanswered, the investigation into Wally's death put on the back-burner for years.

Enter Gregory Packer, a childhood friend of Wally's with a shady past. He has returned to Fox River after many years away. He wastes no time moving in on the Widow Flanagan. Packer, in a strange twist of events, turns out to have married and then divorced Wally's former mistress. It seems odd that he is now romancing Wally's former wife.

When a second murder occurs, one connected closely to Wally's previous life, the complicated story becomes even more complicated. There are many people with motives and many secrets kept buried in the small town.

One problem with The Widow's Mate was that there were so many characters they were hard to keep straight. In addition, many of these people were irrelevant to the story. Father Dowling and Marie barely feature in the story at all, but we are treated to a running commentary on how they are doing. We have to keep up with several plotlines connected to Tuttle, Gregory Packer, the widow, the widow's father-in-law, the chief of police, the woman who runs the senior center and her son, Officer Horvath, Gregory Packer's former wife, Wally's former employees, and others. Everyone's life is inter-related, but the relationships are often confusing and convoluted. The book could have done better with some serious editing and the removal of some of the details surrounding the dozens of minor characters. Though some of the main characters were quirky and interesting, they got lost in all of the details and narratives about minor characters.

The story was hard to follow because of the many characters, and, to make it worse, the novel lacked suspense. Although mysteries of this type, the small-town "cozies" are not as exciting as, say, a Michael Crichton thriller, they still need some suspense to keep the reader entertained enough to finish the book. In this respect, The Widow's Mate was lacking.

Overall, I would have to say this book is disappointing. I never saw the show, so I don't know how entertaining it is, but I will most likely not pick up any further books by Ralph McInerny.

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