Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 3: Father John "Blackie" Ryan

Blackie Ryan - the nickname comes from his middle name, Blackwood - rose from being a parish priest to an auxilary bishop in Chicago, where he is the rector of the Holy Name Cathedral (which is the actual seat of the Archdiocese of Chicago). Among his less orthodox duties is solving various mysteries (almost all involving the Church somehow) at the behest of the cardinal, and often with the help of his Ryan siblings.

This series was written by Andrew Greeley, himself a priest from a large Chicago family of Irish Catholics. Rather than rise through the hierarchy of the Church, Greeley followed an academic path that saw him earn a Ph.D. in sociology and teach at the university level for many years, before transitioning into writing popular fiction and non-fiction books, almost all of which touched on religion or Ireland.

I've read a couple of his books and thought they were OK, though I've not read any of the books in this series.