A Matter of Time

Faith Abbey #3

by David Manuel

Monastic sleuth Brother Bartholomew takes a personal retreat in Bermuda to unravel a spritual crisis of his own, but soon finds himself untangling a bizarre murder mystery involving a local fisherman.

Genres: Mystery

288 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2002

About the author

Mr. Manuel, his wife, daughter, son-in-law (and three granddaughters) are resident members of an ecumenical religious community on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. There, in his lighthouse office at the first light of day he can be found at his computer - except on mornings when he leads a writing workshop, encouraging other would-be authors to believe the dream and persevere.

Reviews

[Timothy Biegel]

This book I started reading in jail and I had to come back to jail to finish it. It was miserable. It was a worn out, beat up copy with the old cat on the front; 'Noire,' the cat.

I didn't like the part of the book where all those who did drugs were judged by Bartholomew, and by God; but, I guess they were murderers too. Manuel says that all drug dealers are murderers.

The image at the very climax, which I did like and has deeper meaning to me and to all is when Renee; the drug dealing murderer; is piloting the yacht and is thrown over by the broken sail; his only hope; the life jacket he had torn up and stuffed full of drugs and money. Don't let your life jacket be drugs and money, says David Manuel, you're going to need a lifejacket. Don't let it be drugs.

[Robin]

This was the first book of the series that I have read. Maybe that’s why I found myself lost for the first half of the book. It took over 150 pages for the mystery to commence. After that, i was intrigued and read with enthusiasm. There was a lot I liked about this book… enough that maybe I will read the first in the series!

[Marisa Young]

A friar travels to Bermuda for a spiritual retreat. Meanwhile, Bermuda is dealing with drugs and murder, plus the Gold Cup Regatta.

Multiple story lines that makes the reader wonder how they are connected, but author does wrap them all up by the end of the book.

[Joanna]

Of the three, this was the one I liked the least.

[Kayla Tornello]

I enjoyed that this story was set in Bermuda. The characters were all interesting, but I had a difficult time keeping track of them all. There were several different story lines that didn't come together until the end of the story, so it was confusing at first. Beyond that, the mystery element was intriguing and there was plenty of action to spice things up.