The Absence of Goodness
by
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After she joined the sheriff’s department, her church going became much more sporadic. She honestly couldn’t recall the last time she’d gone to confession. Now, her life seemingly at its nadir, she sat in the back of a darkened church, staring at the emaciated corpus that hung on an iron cross above the elevated altar, trying to understand how she had come to where she was. She hadn’t cried, really cried, since that night at the hospital. Now, the grief began to swell up inside her again, starting in her bowels and working its way up through her stomach. She slid from her kneeling position to a sitting position, her head in her hands, crying so loudly she wondered if she could be heard outside. She didn’t care, though. She couldn’t control it any longer. It took about five minutes for her cries to subside, to be reduced to a whimpering. “Young lady?” Margaret was startled and looked up toward the end of a pew. She saw a tall, nice looking Dominican nun with a concerned look on her face. “Are you all right, honey?”
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About the Book
When a sheriff’s deputy is brutally murdered, fellow deputy Margaret Donovan—his lover—questions every choice she has made as her life spins out of control. Struggling to find meaning amidst chaos, she returns to the faith in which she was raised. A friendship with a local nun motivates Margaret to hand in her badge and gun and devote her life to the convent.
Poised to make her final profession and take the veil, Margaret learns of the murder of two students. Her former boss asks her to help him to solve the killings. Margaret soon links the recent murders and a thirty-year-old cold-case slaying of another Saint Dominic’s student. She also realizes the first murder is entangled in a cover-up designed to protect some influential people.
Working to identify the killer, her burdens escalate. Another child is on the killer’s hit list, and she finds the detective with whom she’s working, Bill Templeton, falling in love with her. Realizing she makes bad choices more often then she would like, Margaret desperately attempts to solve the murders and reconcile her spiritual and secular lives. Only God knows where it will all end, but Margaret’s faith—and ultimately her love—will lead her to the truth.
About the Author
A native of Iowa, Isaac Morris grew up in central Illinois and later received a Master’s degree in religion from Butler University. He lives in Springfield, Illinois.