THE BISHOP IN THE WEST WING

Among the several matters distracting President Jack Patrick McGurn (POTUS, for those in the know), the peskiest is the attack of the poltergeist. Yes, an authentic poltergeist, everyone agrees, is flinging, spilling, and hiding things in the West Wing, so Irish Catholic President McGurn naturally turns to his old Chicago friend Bishop Blackwood Ryan, the surpliced sleuth last spotted in Paris (The Bishop and the Beggar Girl of St. Germaine, 2001, etc.). Blackie is known to have a way with these ornery mischief-makers: When he speaks, poltergeists listen. But he’s well-advised not to leave his deerstalker’s cap at home, since there’s a more conventional and perilous mystery requiring his attention as well. Some person or persons unknown want to do away with the newly elected POTUS, and the list of suspected conspirators is long. One prominent candidate is a fulminating fundamentalist, Congressman Jeremiah Dillingham, to whom McGurn is “the de-generate in the White House.” Even more dangerous is the Vice-POTUS, Eugenie Cruz—ambitious, ruthless, Lucrezia Borgia in a power suit. Mounting evidence indicates she may finally have gone round the bend. Aided by Blackie, President McGurn twice narrowly escapes death. Eventually the conspirators are caught and the poltergeist attack rebuffed—by the Bishop, of course—leaving at large only whichever wee folks are to blame for swiping so much of the plot from the story and replacing it with filler.

Once again, Father Greeley preaches to the converted. No others need apply.