Death's a Beach

Sister Cecile Mystery #3

by Winona Sullivan

DEATH IN HIGH PLACES

In Miami, murder is nothing special. But the brutal slaying of Elliot Barclay proves otherwise. He was rich and he knew the right people. And a few wrong ones too, as beautiful nun/investigator Sister Cecile discovers when she's hired to find his killer. For a chain of violence connects Barclay's banking colleagues,  his glamorous girlfriends, and his underworld associates--even Cecile's own charge, twelve-year-old Leonie. And the sharks are still circling.

Barclay's death will not be the last. . . .

Genres: Mystery

276 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published November 26, 1997

About the author

Winona Sullivan was a former CIA analyst who brought her experience and her characteristic wit to her writing, publishing a series of novels as well as numerous short stories. In 1991, she received the national award for the Best First Private Eye Novel, by St. Martin's Press and Macmillan London Ltd. An award winning poet and mother of seven children, she taught high school students and was a professor of writing at several colleges. She took great pride in her students, and brought compassion and energy to her teaching. The Winona Sullivan Scholarship Fund was established in her memory in 2004 by her family.

Reviews

[Rachel N. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sister Cecile is a nun running a retirement home in Miami. She's also a private detective who has inherited her father's fortune but she is forbidden by his will to spend the money on anything religious. Cecile is also temporary guardian of Leonie whose father is in the CIA. Banker Elliott Barclay is found dead on the beach. Cecile is hired to investigate and soon finds out Leonie is connected to the crime. Then Elliott's girlfriend is murdered. There really is no mystery because the author tells the reader who committed the crime right after it happens. I didn't mind the characters but won't be seeking out more books in the series.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sister Cecile Buddenbrooks is no ordinary nun, at least not the kind any survivor of Catholic school (like myself) would recognize. An heiress with a private investigator's license (see previous mysteries A Sudden Death at the Norfolk Cafe and Dead South for the backstory on this), Sister Cecile supplements the income of the Miami retirement home for Catholic religious with money earned from her detective work. In Death's a Beach, a plum assignment is handed to her as a local banking concerns hires the nun to look into the mysterious death of one of their own and locate some important documents last seen on his person.

For all her contacts and smarts, however, Cecile is unaware that the prime suspect in Elliot Barclay's death is not Barclay himself but Cecile's pre-teen charge, Leonie, who unwittingly was involved in the man's demise. Leonie's secret is not completely sealed, however, and soon Cecile's perogative changes from finding documents to protecting Leonie from a dark underworld of questionable business practices, a admirer of Barclay's bent on revenge, and a bigoted police officer who makes Archie Bunker look like Santa Claus.

By mystery series standards, the Sister Cecile stories are relatively new (Saving Death, however, was just released in early 2000), and all are fresh and entertaining reads. Even the change in locales from Boston to Miami in Dead South does little to dull Cecile's penchant for adventure and the charm of her sidekicks, young Leonie and wise Sister Raphael. Only in fiction can a nun tool around in a Jaguar or a Ferrari and be believable.