A young nun in a provincial Canadian cloister has given birth to a baby, soon found discarded in a waste basket. A true innocent, she may or may not have known she was pregnant, may or may not know who the father is, may or may not have strangled the baby on purpose. If not her, then how or who? The focus here is primarily and pedestrianly on the mystery angle, with a court-appointed psychiatrist (and lapsed Catholic) as the detective. But it is as a mystery story, especially, that it disappoints. This is partly because the elements of it are so creaky: the secret underground passage (explored with a single candle), the concealed blood-tie (uncovered in a furtive trip to the file room). But it is more because the telling is so bad: no self-respecting detective story would have recourse to hypnosis (not once, but twice) as its prime investigative device. The case, one might well feel, cries out for the attentions of G.K. Chesterton's clerical detective, Father Brown, brought to Canada perhaps on one of his endless unpredictable errands. How much better illumination we would have had, not just into matters criminological, but psychological and spiritual as well, if only someone had suddenly noticed an unobtrusive little figure in owlish spectacles sitting in a shadowy corner of the vestry: "Oh, pardon me, Father, I didn't see you there...
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