A Sudden Death at the Norfolk Cafe

Winner of the 1991 Best First Private Eye Novel Contest co-sponsored by St. Martin's Press, Macmillan London, and the Private Eye Writers of America, A Sudden Death at the Norfolk Cafe introduces a most unusual private investigator.Sister Cecile is an heiress whose father, disapproving of her vocation, left his fortune to her on the condition it not be spent for religious purposes. Cecile circumvents this by putting her investigative talents to work as a licensed private investigator, using her credit cards in the course of her work and then donating the fees to her Boston convent.Her latest case has her protecting the pregnant eighteen-year-old daughter of aspiring political candidate Abe Hersey. Jane Hersey is on the run from Martin Moon, the father of the baby and a vicious blackmailer who wants his secrets to remain secret. Cecile is also involved in the murder of a small-time crook whose mother she has taken under her wing. The various events, further complicated by an inept drug dealer and local political intrigues, draw together in a blazing climax in the parking lot of a shabby Boston bar.