The Bishop and the Missing L Train (A Blackie Ryan Novel) - Tapa dura

Millions of Blackie Ryan fans will be thrilled with his return. Bestselling novelist Andrew M. Greeley has captured the imagination of the reading public with the improbable Bishop Blackie Ryan, who works for the aristocratic, haughty, sometimes arrogant but often slyly good humored Sean Cardinal Cronin, the Archbishop of Chicago.The Vatican has just assigned auxiliary Bishop Gus Quill to the Archdiocese of Chicago over the violent protests of Archbishop Cronin, and the not-so-silent protests of Bishop Ryan. Bishop Quill is under the illusion, one might say delusion, that he has been sent from Rome to replace the good Archbishop when in fact Rome was dying to get rid of him because of his incompetence. Immediately on arriving in Chicago, he manages to disappear while riding the L Train, and it is up to Blackie to find him. As Archbishop Cronin says, "The Vatican does not like to lose bishops, even auxiliaries." And thus begins the search for the missing bishop who no one really wants to find. Of course, none of this is too much for the intrepid little Bishop Ryan. He faces these problems squarely and, with the kind of deductive mind reminiscent of G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown, manages to find solutions to some of the most baffling mysteries he has ever encountered.

A native of Chicago, Reverend Andrew M. Greeley, is a priest, distinguished sociologist and bestselling author. He is professor of social sciences at the University of Chicago and the University of Arizona, as well as Research Associate at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. His current sociological research focuses on current issues facing the Catholic Church-including celibacy of priests, ordination of women, religious imagination, and sexual behavior of Catholics.

Father Greeley received the S.T.L. in 1954 from St. Mary of Lake Seminary. His graduate work was done at the University of Chicago, where he received the M.A. Degree in 1961 and the Ph.D. in 1962.

Father Greeley has written scores of books and hundreds of popular and scholarly articles on a variety of issues in sociology, education and religion. His column on political, church and social issues is carried by the carried by the Chicago Sun Times and may other newspapers. He stimulates discussion of neglected issues and often anticipates sociological trends. He is the author of more than thirty bestselling novels and an autobiography, Furthermore!: Confessions of a Parish Priest.