Keeping the Sister Lou Momentum Going With Her Final Case, Alibis & Angels

"With the Lenten season fast approaching, Sister Louise “Lou” LaSalle looks forward to a final day of indulgence before giving up her favorite sweets. But one Briar Coast resident won’t get the chance to repent. Opal Lorrie, the mayor’s director of finance, was just found in the parking lot of the Board of Ed--with a broken neck. 

The sheriff’s deputies are calling the apparent slip-and-fall a freak accident. But Opal was driving her boss’s car and wearing her boss’s red wool coat. Mayor Heather Stanley has been receiving threatening letters and is clearly the real target. Offering her sanctuary could put the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Hermione of Ephesus at risk, but how can Sister Lou turn her back on a neighbor in need? Aided by her loyal sleuthing partners—her well-connected nephew Chris and reporter Shari Henson—Sister Lou must confront the mayor’s myriad detractors during this critical election year. And as the first day of April nears, it’s up to her to unmask an unrepentant killer who has everyone fooled."

Having recently read book two in Olivia Matthews’s Sister Lou cozy series, Peril & Prayer, I've decided to wrap up the series as a whole. I’m having a “what the hee-haw let’s read the third and final book while the gas is on” moment. And one must indulge such impulses. Besides, this has been a year of settling old debts with my favorite lane of reading: black women crime writers. And by “debts” I mean wrapping up many of the series I’ve been reading on and off again throughout the years. As, of course, seen in my August 2019 TBR.


Still, though Sister Lou’s stories are new, they’re different and special. So I don’t want to wait another month/year before taking a saucepan to her final case in Alibis & Angels. Now I know I’ve always been upfront with my less than agreeable thoughts about the series. Hey, I'm a person with what little bit of a brain God gave me to operate with. Nonetheless, there is real sadness in running into the series's conclusion so soon. Because I find the Sister Lou series unique and special. I could see its strengths and possibilities. (I dislike the word "potential".) So I wish the author had the opportunity to further explore avenues of using a black, plains-clothe Sister to put the Godsmack on crime.

Actually, it pisses me off that this is it. I’m just going to keep it real. You see so many series flouncing around playing it safe. Many of which relying on traditions, formulas, romance, and a bird-brain protagonist stuck in a love triangle. Elements that–for some unspoken reason–seem to gain headway at least six (and running) books deep with year after year releases. Then you have something so unique and out-of-the-box… well… I better stop there. I’ll just say there’s a reason why I try to rep the Sisters writing crime. By default they're out-of-the-box, in a variety of different ways.

Anyway… Alibis & Angels it is…