The Chief's Choice (The Mercy and Justice Mysteries)

Enjoy this Small-Town Murder Mystery Featuring A Unique Sleuthing Couple

I, Father Tom Greer, have a confession to make . . .

For the last six months or so, I've been hiding something from Helen. And from my friend and doctor Martin Maycord. And from my parish secretary Anna Luckgold.

Well, if I'm honest, from my entire parish . . .

There's a pain in my stomach that's been getting worse. I'm to the point now where antacids and over-the-counter pain meds don't work anymore. Driven to desperation, I've done something I never thought I'd do.

I thought I could manage the situation. I promised myself, I'd get through Nate and Gladys's wedding and go see Martin. In fact, I have an appointment with him on Monday.

But it's Sunday morning, and my time's run out . . .

I, Helen Greer, have a confession to make . . .

For the last six months, I had no idea how sick Tom was. I found out the same way everyone else did-when I saw him face down in a pool of his own blood just feet from the altar.

I'm a trained detective. I put together clues to solve crimes and put bad guys in jail. Somehow, I completely missed the signs of his illness. It doesn't matter that he didn't tell me. I'm his wife. I should have known something was wrong.

But I didn't. And now he's in the hospital because of me.

Not only that, I just let a suspected abuser go. And now a woman is dead and her killer on the run because of me.

I have to make a choice between the man I love and a job I'm not sure I can do-or even want to do-anymore.

It's a choice that could change our lives forever . . .

The Chief's Choice is the seventh novel in the Mercy and Justice Mystery series, a contemporary small town mystery series. The series is a sequel to the Father Tom Mysteries that began with The Penitent Priest and includes the same cast of characters. It features Father Tom Greer, a Catholic Priest who is also an amateur sleuth in the tradition of Father Brown, and his wife Helen Greer, female Chief of Police and detective in the tradition of Kinsey Millhone.

Susan Mathis was born in and grew up in an extremely small town in Alachua County, Florida where her family has lived for more than 100 years. When Susan was still very young, James (J.R) Mathis was born in a somewhat bigger small town about 100 miles south of where she lived. Within a decade, James' small town would become part of Orlando, the biggest tourist destination in the United States. He was not amused. That is how, while Susan was running barefoot, swimming in lakes full of alligators and feeding chickens, James was sitting in his bedroom reading books faster than his father could bring them home from the library.

Were James and Susan to write their love story, it would definitely be an enemies-to-lovers trope. They met in the library where he was working. He found her demands for books that he had to pull and bring to her so unreasonable that he actually turned her into the head librarian. She in turn was so anxious to drive him away that when some friends secretly set them up she laid out an entire speech about how miserable her life was (she is typically very upbeat). Little did she suspect that he had a passionate attraction to misery and they were married just over a year later.

Fast forward 26 years, three children, four grandchildren and 20 years of James working for the Federal government. He was diagnosed with a highly treatable but still very scary form of cancer. As so often happens, this brush with mortality inspired him to do something he'd always wanted to do, write a novel. After the publication of the second Father Tom Mystery, Susan joined him as coauthor. As far as the Mathises are concerned, writing together is the most fun a couple can have sitting at a computer.