The Widow's Mate

When Melissa Flanagan asks Father Dowling to pray for her dead husband's eternal soul, St. Hilary's popular parish priest is concerned with matters of a more corporeal nature-- homicide. Wallace Flanagan had vanished a decade earlier with an inheritance and a mistress. Ten years of unanswered questions multiply when his body is found wedged inside a cement mixer belonging to the Flanagan family business.

Most of Flanagan's friends, family and sworn enemies have more than a passing interest in his murder. In fact, most of them have a motive. Soon a second body, that of a shady associate of Flanagan's, exposes some of Fox River's best kept-- and dirtiest -- secrets. Father Dowling's keen understanding of the best and worst of human nature leads him on a twisted path to a waiting killer.