Death on the Way of Perfection (?)

It was about this time five years ago that I published The Dark Night Murders. I had been piddling around with that mystery off and on -- mostly way off -- for over a decade. I took advantage (hem, hem) of a period of underemployment to complete the work on that project.

Having done one book, I decided to produce two much shorter ones, collecting mostly things I had written before. Thus Treatise on Melancholy and Elijah and the Ravens of Carith appeared soon after Dark Night. Elijah has been far and away the best seller, although it has not burned up any charts. All of these books have their roots very much in my three decades as a Discalced Carmelite friar.

About that time, I began work on a second mystery with John of the Cross as protagonist. This time I wanted to have Teresa of Avila (known in her day as Teresa of Jesus) play a more important role, and I set the story at the Monastery of the Incarnation at the time that the two Carmelite saints were there, she as prioress and he as confessor. The action takes place not long after that in The Dark Night Murders.

Although I did lots of plotting, character sketches and a bit of writing, this one never got off the ground. I attribute this only in part to the happy fact that at the time I was able to obtain full time gainful employment, thus losing all those leisure hours I find necessary for writing fiction.

Now that I have published the two WhoVille volumes, my writing energy is engaged and winter -- as they say in the House of Stark/Game of Thrones-- is coming. So I picked up the threads of the John/Teresa mystery to see if the time has come to finish weaving that story or to make the decision to archive the materials and forget about them.
 
The working title is Death on the Way of Perfection, in reference to one of Teresa's greatest works. The book involves the discovery of the body of a nun in one of the chapels of the monastery and a claim that her mysterious death is due to the work of the devil. The Holy Office of the Inquisition lurks somewhere in the background, along with flirtatious nuns and their idle noblemen friends, a suspected group of heretics, an ambitious cleric, a  visionary nun, hostile friars and other such worthies. Not to mention occasional appearances by a pesky little demonic figure. And most importantly, our intrepid John of the Cross and Teresa of Jesus.

Anyway, it shows some promise and I am reconsidering it. Time to revive it or put it to rest.