The Vanishing Woman: A Father Gabriel Mystery

Author: Fiorella De Maria

In this next book in the Father Gabriel mystery series, the priest detective tries to solve the riddle behind the disappearance of the most hated woman in town.

Enid Jennings, a retired headmistress and an embittered war widow, has a talent for causing conflict and distress wherever she goes. When Enid's daughter sees her vanish into thin air, she is widely assumed to have been mistaken or to have lost her mind – or worse, to have committed an act of foul play.

Enter Father Gabriel. Working on the principle that some stories are too strange to have been made up, the priest sets out to discover the whereabouts of the missing woman. With help from the town's physician, and hostility from the irascible Inspector Applegate, Father Gabriel delves into Enid Jennings' past, and he digs up the recent past of the whole village during the days of the Phony War, when invaders lay in wait across the Channel and crimes were just a little easier to hide.

Fiorella De Maria

Fiorella De Maria read her first Sherlock Holmes mystery at the age of seven and has been a fan of classic crime fiction ever since. A winner of the National Book Prize of Malta, in addition to the Father Gabriel series, she has published multiple novels with Ignatius Press for both adults and younger readers, including Poor Banished Children, Do No Harm, A Most Dangerous Innocence, and My Family and Other Skaters. She lives in Surrey, England, with her husband, four children, and a dog called Monty