Fri 11 Mar 2011
RALPH McINERNY – Bishop as Pawn. Vanguard Press, hardcover, 1978. Paperback reprint: Ace/Charter, 1980.
A great many strange things seem to go on in Fox River, Illinois, the site of Father Dowling’s parish, and a surprising number of them are of considerable interest to mystery fans.
First, his housekeeper’s husband suddenly returns after an unexplained absence of fifteen years, only to be murdered the same evening, and then Bishop Rooney, mistaken for his old friend, is kidnapped from under Dowling’s own roof. The chief suspect is the renegade priest Father Chirichi.
Dowling himself is rather conservative in his religious views, but that’s precisely what it is that helps him remain such a sturdy watchtower throughout the storm. As a mystery character, it’s also why he’s someone we’d definitely like to see more of.
Rating: B minus.
[UPDATE] 03-11-11. As I was in the process of posting this old review, I read something into the last line that wasn’t true. I thought I was saying that this was the first Father Dowling book, and it wasn’t. The first one was Her Death of Cold, and it came out the year before, 1977.
A complete list of the Father Dowling mysteries was published on this blog on the occasion of Ralph McInerny’s passing, early last year. Check it out here.
Toward the end of that tribute to the author I mentioned, of course, the TV series based on the character. I don’t remember the books well enough to say so definitively, but the review suggests that there was little similarity. Tom Bosley as Father Dowling played him as too much of a comic character, or that’s how I remember it, but I did enjoy watching the program.
The TV program ran for three seasons on two networks, so it was popular. The last sentence of that previous post was: “The series has not yet been released on commercial DVDs — and why not?” There’s still been no answer to that.
March 11th, 2011 at 6:07 pm
” Dowling himself is rather conservative in his religious views …”
Nice bit of understatement there. I never could get into the books largely because I didn’t much like Dowling who I found dour and stiff — almost the oppositte of the character Tom Bosley played which took little more than the name.
Re why the FATHER DOWLING MYSTERIES aren’t on DVD, I suspect there is little demand by anyone younger than us (and we aren’t exactly a target demographic).
It did rerun on various cable channels for years, but I can’t recall the plot of a single episode. All I recall is that over the course of the series Ricky Nelson’s daughter never really did learn to act or once convince me she was a nun.
I did think once or twice Boseley might have made an interesting Father Brown.
That said McInerny was a successful and even fairly important writer in the genre who at least wasn’t afraid to say what he thought through Dowling and plot genuine mysteries along the way.
March 11th, 2011 at 9:38 pm
I find it quite remarkable, David, that in my update comments following this review that I almost said something about Father Brown and Father Dowling and thinking that Tom Bosley might have been a better choice for the former than the latter.
I didn’t, though, but I was ready in reserve if and when it came up in the conversation.
March 11th, 2011 at 11:10 pm
Considering Barnard Hughes and Walter Connally as Father Brown Bosley would have been — ahem (or should that be amen?) — a blessing.
Alec Guiness was all wrong, but the movie was entertaining and he and Peter Finch fun as Father Brown and Flambeau.
Surprizingly, Kenneth More who was mostly a light leading man in comedies like GENEVIVE, DOCTOR INT HE HOUSE, and THE SHERIFF OF FRACTURED JAW or a likable hero in THE 39 STEPS or NORTHWEST FRONTIER, proved to be an excellent Father Brown — but sadly died before many seasons could be filmed.