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Informationen zum Autor Dorothy Gilman (1923–2012) was the author of 14 Mrs. Pollifax novels, including The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, the series debut; Mrs. Pollifax Pursued; Mrs. Pollifax and the Lion Killer; Mrs. Pollifax, Innocent Tourist; and Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled . She was also the author of many other novels, among them Thale’s Folly . Klappentext From the bestselling author of the Mrs. Pollifax books comes a new mystery habit to acquire. From the moment Sister John and Sister Hyacinthe reach the old house left to their abbey by a mysterious benefactor, their cloistered world begins to crumble. First, there is the wounded man hiding in the house, then the suitcase stuffed with money sitting at the bottom of the well, not to mention fearful apparitions in the night. Lord only knows what's going on. That is, until the good sisters, armed only with their faith and boundless energy, set things right--even if it means a shocking revelation or two about ghosts, gangsters...and murder.1 Sister Hyacinthe was as dark as Sister John was fair, given to small superstitions, a certain amount of brooding that drew her brows together frequently, and a tendency to expect the worst. There was Indian blood in her background and this gave her cheekbones prominence and her skin a dark cast. She had been raised in impoverished hill country, her only contact with culture a group of Catholic nuns working among the poor. There was, or so Mother Clothilde had said, not a great deal to do with her. Except enjoy her, Sister John had pointed out, but she appeared to be the only one who appreciated Sister Hyacinthe’s fey qualities. Sister John had never found anyone threatening; it was not in her nature, which was cheerful and abundantly optimistic. Nothing was impossible, she felt, if one only had faith. Sister Vincent said that she was like a silver bell, .999 pure, that always struck the right note. If at times this was tiresome to live with it was leavened by her competence, which was formidable, and her eagerness, which could be misplaced but was always ardent. Physically she was as luminous to look at as a Renoir. Sister Hyacinthe, on the other hand, was pure Gauguin, and when the sisters of St. Tabitha prayed for the capacity to love God’s less fortunate creatures it was frequently she who came unbidden to their minds. In the early days Mother Clothilde had tried her on sewing but her stitches were wild and she absentmindedly sewed altar cloths to her lap. She was indifferent to reading and to writing; she was a hazard in the kitchen and when Sister Vincent played Bach she fell asleep. Only with growing things did she feel at home, and it was the present abbess, more pragmatic than Clothilde, who reasoned that if this was her only gift then she might as well become an accomplished botanist, learning the scientific names of plants as well as their uses. During the trip into New York State it became obvious that driving was not going to be added to Sister Hyacinthe’s small list of skills. Sister John decided that Mr. Armisbruck’s delivery boy must have been an incipient speed demon and the licensing examiner distraught when he tested her, for there was a distinctly erratic quality to her driving. They were stopped three times by policemen, once for driving only twenty miles an hour on the thruway, a second time for driving over eighty miles an hour, while a third police car overtook them with sirens shrieking because Sister Hyacinthe had seen skullcap and puffballs growing beside the thruway and parked to gather a few plants. “There seem to be a great many regulations,” said Sister John when this crisis had been met. “What was it he thought you were collecting?” “Cannabis sativa,” Sister Hyacinthe told her indignantly. “I explained that it was Scutellaria lateriflora but he said you couldn’t trust ...
