SCORCHED GRACE

A nun with a wild past investigates crimes close to home.

Sister Holiday has a somewhat unusual background for a Catholic nun: former punk musician, lesbian with a chaotic romantic history, enthusiastic substance abuser, and survivor of family tragedy. But she’s been welcomed into the tiny order of the Sisters of the Sublime Blood (total members: four nuns) and is doing her best at “serving the impossible truth of queer piety” as a music teacher at a struggling parochial school in New Orleans. Then someone sets a fire at the school that results in serious injuries to two students and the death of one of the school’s janitors. Sister Holiday is horrified but also galvanized—she’s determined to solve the crime despite having no background in investigation. As the number of suspects multiplies, more fires and more deaths occur, and Sister Holiday’s mission becomes more urgent. All of this adds up to a promising premise, but it never gels. Sister Holiday is terrible at investigation, mishandling physical evidence and hiding it from the police, and quickly becomes a prime suspect herself. The plot often stalls, the tone veers from zany to noir to confessional, and seemingly important characters disappear without explanation. The book does little with its New Orleans setting except remind the reader every few pages that it’s hot and humid there, and that’s just one repetitious element in the prose. Sister Holiday can be an engaging narrator, but she deserves a better book.

The main character is intriguing, but she’s not enough to lift this muddled debut.