Mystery series

This page contains comments and descriptions by the author as well as reviews of
previous books in the Owen Keane series.


Check with your local bookseller
for current availabilty of
the books listed below.

	(1991) The Edgar-nominated debut of the series finds Owen Keane, ex-seminarian, working as a researcher for a New York law firm. His routine existence is interrupted by a strange assignment: compile all available information on a forty-year-old plane crash that claimed the lives of a playboy and his fiancee. The request is made by the playboy's brother, a reclusive millionaire. Keane soon learns that the crash was once rumored to be murder and that his client was the chief suspect. Stranger still, Keane realizes that no one wants him to finish his report, not the millionaire's employees, not Keane's own firm, not even Keane's girlfriend, who hopes he'll swear off metaphysical mysteries forever.
REVIEWS	"no guns, no gore, but plenty of intellectual guts." New York Times "DEADSTICK is a first novel by a writer so talented that his good guys are as interesting as his bad ones. And Owen Keane is among the freshest, most appealing figures to appear in crime fiction in a long time." Philadelphia Inquirer "A sure-handed debut." Kirkus Reviews "An ultimate confrontation, worthy of the best whodunits, brings this gripping mystery to a strong conclusion." Publishers Weekly
	LIVE TO REGRET (1992) Owen Keane, struggling to deal with his own grief over the death in an auto accident of Mary Ohlman, his one-time love, is asked to investigate the strange behavior of Mary's widowed husband. Harry Ohlman has hidden himself away in a small New Jersey shore resort, ignoring both his young daughter and his law career. Keane investigates, becoming involved in the lives of a troubled priest and a mysterious beauty who is fascinated by the local legend of a girl who died for love.
REVIEWS	"It's an intriguing book, full of nooks and crannies, twists and turns sure to surprise the reader." San Mateo Times "Metaphysical, thinking, introverted, self-effacing, ineffectual, Owen Keane is unlike any investigator to hit the mystery scene." The Indianapolis News "It's hard to find a place to break as each page flows from one scene to another." Ocala Star-Banner "A heady read." Kirkus Reviews

	THE LOST KEATS (1993) A "prequel" to DEADSTICK, this entry is set in southern Indiana where Owen Keane is a student at St. Aelred Seminary. At least he is for the moment. Keane's future is uncertain because of his compulsive questioning. His spiritual advisor, a kindly priest, gives Keane a unique assignment. He asks Keane to find another troubled seminarian who has disappeared from the school. As the advisor hoped, this quest forces Keane to reexamine his own vocation. But it does much more, involving Keane in a murder, a secret drug operation, and a search for a lost sonnet of the English Romantic poet John Keats.
REVIEWS	"Intelligent, perceptive, and nicely evocative of the early-seventies Midwest." New York Daily News "This is a thoughtful mystery that unfolds around a poem, drugs, a former girlfriend. . . and a spiritual quest that gives the book its distinctive character." Wilson Library Bulletin "Faherty draws Owen with a grin-amiable, self-deprecating, buffoonish, but wise and witty as well." Booklist "Owen comes to learn a lot about life in the backwoods of Indiana, and the reader comes to learn a lot about Owen and the searching mind that makes him so interesting." New York Times "This ambitious work sensitively probes the protagonist's emotional uncertainties. . . and garners much wry humor from the image of Owen, cigarette in mouth, spluttering through rural Hoosier backwoods in his beat-up sports car. A near faultless performance from start to finish. Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
	DIE DREAMING (1994) DIE DREAMING is a two-part story. In 1978 Owen Keane attends the ten-year reunion of his class from Our Lady of Sorrows High School. There he learns of an old scandal involving members of an elite group of students who called themselves the Sorrowers. Keane investigates and uncovers the secret behind the ruined life of the class's most promising member, one Ricky Gerow. Ten years later, Keane receives an invitation for his twentieth reunion, along with news that Gerow has died, but not of natural causes. Keane sets out to find the murderer, driven by the possibility that his 1978 investigation somehow led to Gerow's death.
REVIEWS	"The actual death of a person does not occur until near the end of the book. But there are lots of "deaths" that set Keane on his course-the death of innocence, the death of values, the death of truth." Mystery News "He's a rare bird in crime fiction, and while this tale rambles and sprawls in spots, its rewards are rich and surprising." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) "Faherty's plot is inventive and original." Booklist

	PROVE THE NAMELESS (1996) In 1990, Owen Keane is working as a copy editor for an Atlantic City newspaper. A story crosses his desk describing a twenty-year-old, unsolved multiple homicide that claimed all but one member of a local family. The sole survivor-an infant at the time of the slayings-is now a troubled young woman, haunted by the idea that the murders and her escape were random, meaningless acts. When she approaches the newspaper for help reopening the case and is turned down, Keane agrees to look into the mystery. It's a decision he soon regrets, as he finds himself tracking a dead murderer who is still somehow capable of striking back.
REVIEWS	"Painstaking plotting, nuanced characterization, and a prose style it's a pleasure to spend time with. The Philadelphia Inquirer "[Faherty's] graceful writing is full of feeling and humor, and he uses his Atlantic City locale to good effect." The Washington Post "PROVE THE NAMELESS is one of Faherty's best. Faherty has created a character who is original. . . and whose first person narration illuminates the story rather than constricts it." Mostly Murder "Faherty toggles among a trio of suspects and expertly manipulates several subplots that explore greed and obsession." Publishers Weekly
	(1998) THE ORDAINED, is the sixth Owen Keane novel. As usual, I was reacting to the previous Keane book when I sat down to outline this one. PROVE THE NAMELESS was the longest and most complex of the series, so I intentionally set out to write a shorter book. I wanted a tighter time frame, too. The Keanes usually take place over the course of five days or more. I wanted this one to be no more than two or three days with a definite deadline looming for Keane. Finally, I wanted a small-town setting away from Keane's normal New Jersey haunts. The result was a sequel to THE LOST KEATS, a book that described Keane's seminary days in rural Indiana in 1973. THE ORDAINED takes place in 1993, when the murderer from KEATS, whom Keane helped to convict, is up for parole. Keane ventures back to Indiana to attend the hearing. Once there, he becomes involved in a mystery. I'll let the book's dust jacket description take up the story. "The residents of the isolated town of Rapture, founded by an Adventist sect, the Ordained of God, are disappearing one by one. The Ordained believed that the world would end in 1844 and that they would be taken bodily into heaven. Now, one hundred and fifty years after their rapture failed to occur, something very similar is claiming their descendants. Encouraged by a young doctor who has shut herself away in Rapture, and disarmed by the legend of the Ordained, Keane investigates and steps directly into the grasp of an implacable, murderous evil." I'd like to add that readers familiar with THE LOST KEATS will recognize several members of the cast of THE ORDAINED, including Brother Dennis, Keane's seminary friend (and one of my favorite characters).
REVIEWS	"Faherty is a crafty writer with a laconic style that is delicious. Keane's world-weary kindness and self-lacerating humor make him a wonderful mouthpiece, and let him drop pungent observations and wisdoms into the story without slowing down the pace. He explodes a reader's indifference to Indiana and scorn of religious zeal until the quiet and unyielding Midwestern landscape is filled with new revelations. Whether buzzing a cornfield in a plane or visiting a priest in his pottery studio, listening to a coffin maker or UFO devotee, Keane relentlessly topples stereotypes as he confronts the yearnings of locals who've lived too long on a faith denied." The Washington Post "If other Faherty mysteries have been trickier, perhaps none has been more rewarding than THE ORDAINED on other levels. Unconscious of it as he may be at first, Owen Keane has returned to Indiana on a pilgrimage. Through various believers and nonbelievers in the variegated cast of characters, and through a couple of near-death experiences courtesy of the bad guys, he approaches what he and the others sardonically refer to as closure." The Indianapolis Star "[Keane] is an odd bird in an equally odd series, one that is consistently low-key, gently thoughtful, and rewarding." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) Faherty's latest novel is his most satisfying entry in the Owen Keane mystery series. Nuvo Newsweekly "The religious convictions of the characters... go to the heart of this eloquently low-key mystery, which is about the challenge of maintaining a belief that defies reason. If the hero of this provocative series cannot make the leap, he pays his repects to those who can and goes on searching for his own answers. In his quiet, thoughtful way, Owen proves that he does, indeed, have a lot of guts." The New York Times

index . . . . Home Page . . . .

Select from the index links to read more about the family of mysteries from . . . . . . . . . . . Turn to the newest issue in the series:

Look for new postings each month at
Terence Faherty's Mystery Web Site

Terence Faherty
www.terencefaherty.com

©2003 AlphaStudio.com, All rights reserved.
AlphaStudio is a Service Mark of WebLink1.com