I probably wouldn’t have purchased J. R. Mathis’s mystery novel The Penitent Priest if I’d noticed that its tagline said “A Clean Murder Mystery.” (Puts me in mind of the old joke about “a nice old-fashioned murder with no immorality in it.”) When the first recommendation a book offers is its lack of dirty words and sex scenes, it’s not usually a guarantee of literary quality. But The Penitent Priest turned out better than I would have expected.

Father Tom Greer came to the priesthood late in life, after the murder of his beloved wife. So he’s somewhat nervous when the archbishop assigns him to temporarily replace the parish priest at St. Clare’s in Myerton, Pennsylvania. Myerton is where he lived as a married man and buried his wife, and where he abruptly left a number of old friends when he dropped out of sight afterwards. So he has some personal fences to mend.

But when an unseen stranger tells him secrets no innocent person should know in the confessional, Father Tom knows he has the opportunity to finally identify his wife’s killer. But he’ll also have to face his own fears and guilt.

I was impressed with the writing in The Penitent Priest. You rarely run into a novelist these days who can parse a decent English sentence and spell words right. The plotting, unfortunately, was less wonderful. As is not uncommon among starting authors, author Mathis has laid on too many coincidences. Why should the archbishop assign Father Tom to precisely this parish, considering his personal history and the fact that he’s still a person of interest in his wife’ murder? And is it really likely that the woman to whom Tom was engaged before he met his wife should show up as a police detective here?

Also, the big surprise at the end of the story might as well have been printed on the title page in big red letters.

But because I liked the writing, and because Father Tom is a good character, I bought the sequel.