'A must read for all mystery/thriller readers...'

THE BREAD OF TEARS

A 5-star review on Amazon UK from Eileen M. Thornton:
 
Sister Rose runs a hostel for the homeless in London. One day, returning from an engagement, she is horrified to find the body of Angela, someone she had helped in the past, outside the hostel. The girl had been murdered; the sign of the cross carved into her chest. Inside the hostel she finds two other bodies, both brutally murdered. The police are called and an investigation into the deaths begins.
 
As the story unfolds, we learn that Sister Rose had been a policewoman in Newcastle upon Tyne, where she had been attacked while working on a case...  So traumatized by the events, she spent some time in a convent to help her forget the horror she had been through. It was during her stay at the convent that she turned to God.
 
... Sister Rose soon begins to help the DCI investigate the murders. But, she also finds herself being drawn to the man himself.

I really enjoyed this novel. There are several twists and turns as it slowly leads the reader to a nail-biting climax. 

A must read for all mystery/thriller readers.

Thank you, Eileen! 

Available as a paperback and e-book here

'A compelling read!'

The Bread of Tears

'I found it refreshingly different and a compelling read!'
Joy Lennick, author of My Gentle War (Memoir of an Essex Girl), Hurricane Halsey, Running Your Own Small Hotel and Jobs in Baking and Confectionery. 

Thank you, Joy.

The Bread of Tears available as a paperback and e-book here

When she was a cop, she made their life hell.

Now she’s a nun, God help them!

Before taking her vows, Sister Rose was Maggie Weaver, a Newcastle policewoman. While uncovering a serial killer, she suffered severe trauma, and after being nursed back to health she becomes a nun. In her new calling she is sent to London to run a hostel for the homeless. Here, she does good works, and also combats prejudice and crime.

            As she attempts to save a homeless woman from a local gang boss, events crystallise, taking her back to Newcastle, the scene of her nightmares, to play out the final confrontation against drug traffickers, murderers and old enemies in the police.

            She finds her spiritual self and a new identity. She is healed through faith and forgiveness. It’s also about her surviving trauma and grief – a triumph of the human spirit, of good over evil.

'Unexpected twists and turns'

5-star review of The Bread of Tears on Goodreads as a result of a 'giveaway' offer:

'I wasn't sure how a gun-slinging nun protagonist was going to work out, but it did. 
'Good character development, unexpected twists and turns. I enjoyed the ride!! 
'I look forward to reading further novels by Morton.'
Linda Donohue, Arizona, USA 

Thank you, Linda!

The Bread of Tears is available as an e-book and a paperback here

A Sister Rose crime thriller When she was a cop, she made their life hell. Now she’s a nun, God help them! 

Before taking her vows, Sister Rose was Maggie Weaver, a Newcastle policewoman. While uncovering a serial killer, she suffered severe trauma, and after being nursed back to health she becomes a nun. In her new calling she is sent to London to run a hostel for the homeless. Here, she does good works, and also combats prejudice and crime. 

As she attempts to save a homeless woman from a local gang boss, events crystallise, taking her back to Newcastle, the scene of her nightmares, to play out the final confrontation against drug traffickers, murderers and old enemies in the police. 

She finds her spiritual self and a new identity. She is healed through faith and forgiveness. It’s also about her surviving trauma and grief – a triumph of the human spirit, of good over evil. 

'All the characters and horrific events in this crime thriller are extremely visual and well-drawn, making this a riveting read. It would make a brilliant TV series!' – Jan Warburton, author of The Secret, A Face to Die For

'One tough nun!'

A 5-star review on Amazon from a US reader of The Bread of Tears, part of which reads:

'There are several stories going on: the new murders in the hostel are connected to her past, the dead girl in the alley belongs to another murderer, and then there is the criminal empire involved in drugs and prostitution of young girls, and they will kill her if she intervenes. And add to these problems, she may be having certain feelings for one of the investigators.

'Wow, I found Maggie Weaver, aka Sister Rose, one tough Nun. The author weaves the three stories together into a neat pattern, dropping Sister Rose into traps that she must escape or suffer a horrible death, yet she holds to her Faith as she struggles against great odds. In the end she isn’t afraid to send evil to Hell a little early. ... Highly recommended.'

Thank you, Virginia!

The Bread of Tears is available as an e-book and a paperback here

A Sister Rose crime thriller When she was a cop, she made their life hell. Now she’s a nun, God help them! 

Before taking her vows, Sister Rose was Maggie Weaver, a Newcastle policewoman. While uncovering a serial killer, she suffered severe trauma, and after being nursed back to health she becomes a nun. In her new calling she is sent to London to run a hostel for the homeless. Here, she does good works, and also combats prejudice and crime. 

As she attempts to save a homeless woman from a local gang boss, events crystallise, taking her back to Newcastle, the scene of her nightmares, to play out the final confrontation against drug traffickers, murderers and old enemies in the police. 

She finds her spiritual self and a new identity. She is healed through faith and forgiveness. It’s also about her surviving trauma and grief – a triumph of the human spirit, of good over evil. 

'All the characters and horrific events in this crime thriller are extremely visual and well-drawn, making this a riveting read. It would make a brilliant TV series!' – Jan Warburton, author of The Secret, A Face to Die For

Book review - Mariette in Ecstasy

Ron Hansen’s Mariette in Ecstasy (1991) is an unusual book in both format and content, which may explain why it took four years or so before it was published in UK (my paperback, 1995).

I bought the book as I thought it might help in my research endeavours for The Bread of Tears (see below), but as it happens I’d amassed enough material to progress my Sister Rose novel so this book stayed on my shelf unread for many years. Finally, I got round to reading it.

Hansen writes in the present tense, and the point of view is omniscient, which seems apt considering the subject matter is the religious life in a convent. It begins as though it was a poem:

Upstate New York.

August 1906.

Half-moon and a wrack of grey clouds…

Wallowing beetles in green pond water.

Toads.

Cattails sway and unsway.

Grape leaves rattle and settle again…

Wooden reaper. Walking plough. Hayrick.

Mother Celine gracefully walking, head down.

Crickets.

Mooncreep and spire.

Ears are flattened to the head of a stone panther water-spout…

… and so on…

Each separated by a scene-change space. Fortunately, these spaces do not contain the usual three asterisks; if they did, the pages would be peppered with them to distraction. Some scene shifts are only three lines of text, others one line. The shifts may be necessary as the point of view moves from one character to another: there are thirty-five nuns listed, their ages from 17 (Mariette) to 75.

Mariette is a postulant nun, the younger sister of the Reverend Mother Céline, 37; their father is the local doctor. Mariette’s beautiful and seems perfect in every way, a good hard-working pupil. And then she begins to bleed from hands, feet and side: genuine stigmata or a hoax? The various inhabitants of the convent are divided, some believing devoutly, others distrustful.

Hansen’s prose is in many ways like a screenplay, especially in the chosen tense, the visual descriptions and the scene shifts. A few critics point to the writing being ‘precious’; though I didn’t find it so: poetic in places, certainly. He masterfully captures the period, the daily life of a convent and its claustrophobic atmosphere. His powers of description put the reader there. Take, for example, two glimpses:

She sees cracked, parched lips and a trace of sour yellow; a forehead as hot, perhaps , as candle wax; frail eyelids that are redly lettered with tiny capillaries; green veins that tree and knot under the skin of her hands. (p91)

Mariette is giving her father the attention she would give a magician. She has imagined him through childhood as the king of a foreign country, but he has changed into a too-heavy man with a glossy moustache and unhealthy white nails and grey cinders of skin blemishes on his winter-reddened face…. (p96)

While not an easy read, with an inconclusive ending, it is a compulsive story. Across the Pond the book has garnered much praise and many favourable reviews over the years.

Ron Hansen is also the author of The Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford (1985), the film being released in 2007. Mariette in Ecstasy was filmed (1996) but was not given a wide release.

***

The Bread of Tears

When she was a cop, she made their life hell.

Now she’s a nun, God help them!

Before taking her vows, Sister Rose was Maggie Weaver, a Newcastle policewoman. While uncovering a serial killer, she suffered severe trauma, and after being nursed back to health she becomes a nun. In her new calling she is sent to London to run a hostel for the homeless. Here, she does good works, and also combats prejudice and crime.

As she attempts to save a homeless woman from a local gang boss, events crystallise, taking her back to Newcastle, the scene of her nightmares, to play out the final confrontation against drug traffickers, murderers and old enemies in the police.

She finds her spiritual self and a new identity. She is healed through faith and forgiveness. It’s also about her surviving trauma and grief – a triumph of the human spirit, of good over evil.

This is a gritty and at times downright gruesome thriller. Written in the first person, Morton has achieved a true sense of feminine appeal in Maggie, the narrator, and despite her religious calling, she comes over as quite a sexy woman… I found myself totally empathising with this full-blooded, gutsy woman... All the characters and horrific events in this crime thriller are extremely visual and well-drawn, making this a riveting read. It would make a brilliant TV series! – Jan Warburton, author of The Secret, A Face to Die For

The Bread of Tears is available as a paperback and an e-book here.

Give the police guns

The latest terrorist atrocity in Westminster rightly evoked anger, compassion for the injured and the bereaved families, and inevitably calls for all British police to be armed.

            This latter consideration strikes a memory chord. In my novel The Bread of Tears, my heroine Sister Rose dwells on that subject:

The Abbess was kneeling with her back to the door, praying in front of a rack of lit candles. She turned her head slightly towards me. ‘Please be patient, Sister Rose, while I finish my prayers for our dear Sister Leocritia.’ Her New York accent was still very strong even after many years in England.

            I nodded agreement and she turned back to the candles.

            When I joined Northumbria Police I was Maggie Weaver – though Mike called me Meggie – and I had still attended church services about once a month. For two years I was in their armed response unit and when I shot dead my first criminal – David Paul Duggan, a name I wouldn’t forget, it was like remembering your first love’s name – I lit a candle for him. At the time I had no doubt that as a multiple murderer he deserved to die, but I still hoped his soul might find peace. Then my weapon was seized and sealed for forensic checks and swabs impregnated with a chemical preservative were taken from my hair, face and hands and my clothing packaged and sealed. This was to verify that it was my bullet that took Duggan’s life; perhaps the rule-makers had seen the film The Man who shot Liberty Valance. I then waited for the inquiry to look into the shooting – self-defence, with two senior officer witnesses – losing my sleep and some weight in the process. When I was cleared, I was reassessed to remain an ‘authorised shot’.

            For my second killing – Morgan Sugden – I also lit a candle and offered a prayer. After more months of inquiry, I was in the clear again. At that point the post-traumatic stress was getting to me so it was mutually decided that I’d leave the ARU and continue my police work without a weapon.

            Even in these violent times, when thousands of British bobbies find themselves armed for one call-out or another, most gun-carrying police officers rarely draw their weapons and in fact do not kill many criminals. It was just my bad luck, to be in a situation where the gun was mightier than any words I could muster. I was commended on both occasions, because I saved other people by snuffing out the lives of two men, lives extinguished as easily as a candle.

            Some months later, I was chasing an armed robber, Bill Reavley, over the rooftops when he fell and was seriously maimed. That was the day when I decided to keep away from the church. I convinced myself that I could do without that added angst. The priest, Father Collins, telephoned me once, and then we lost contact. Staying away was easier than going back with excuses after a long lapse: that guilt thing again.

            If someone had told me then that I would become a nun, I’d have sent for the men in white coats.

            The Abbess stood and faced me, her large pectoral cross glinting in the candlelight. ‘I believe you neglected to turn the other cheek earlier this evening, Sister?’ Shining brown eyes sparkled, either with anger or amusement. I didn’t know which, though under the circumstances it was probably the former. (pp45-47)

The Bread of Tears

Available as paperback and Kindle on Amazon sites here

Before taking her vows, Sister Rose was Maggie Weaver, a Newcastle policewoman. While uncovering a serial killer, she suffered severe trauma, and after being nursed back to health she becomes a nun. In her new calling she is sent to London to run a hostel for the homeless. Here, she does good works, and also combats prejudice and crime.

            As she attempts to save a homeless woman from a local gang boss, events crystallise, taking her back to Newcastle, the scene of her nightmares, to play out the final confrontation against drug traffickers, murderers and old enemies in the police.

            She finds her spiritual self and a new identity. She is healed through faith and forgiveness. It’s also about her surviving trauma and grief – a triumph of the human spirit, of good over evil.

Some review excerpts

This is a gritty and at times downright gruesome thriller. Written in the first person, Morton has achieved a true sense of feminine appeal in Maggie, the narrator, and despite her religious calling, she comes over as quite a sexy woman… I found myself totally empathising with this full-blooded, gutsy woman... All the characters and horrific events in this crime thriller are extremely visual and well-drawn, making this a riveting read. It would make a brilliant TV series! – Jan Warburton, author of The Secret, A Face to Die For

… Don’t think that once you’ve recovered from the grim murders of the opening chapters you can settle down to a straightforward detection model… As sadistic as Hannibal Lector, this killer will scare you – be warned! – Maureen Moss, author of More to Life.

Nik Morton knows how to write a thriller. The characters are all well drawn, especially Sister Rose… There is a serial killer who will make your spine tingle in Jack the Ripper fashion... I think this is a first rate crime thriller, which also delivers a strong message. – Keith Souter, author of Murder Solstice

… The stuff of all male fantasies rolled into an incredible bundle. And what a novel! Mr Morton skilfully delivers a well-crafted thriller with more than a little intrigue, a love story in the making and some subtle twists from start to finish. The final fifty pages or so seemed to turn by themselves such was the pace of the climax of the story. I for one have fallen for this deep thinking female. – Ken Scott, author of Jack of Hearts, ghost-writer of Do the birds still sing in Hell?