"Thief in Retreat is a thoroughly absorbing, sharply drawn story with a protagonist who is courageous, intelligent, and endearing. Sister Agatha, with her restored Harley Davidson motorcycle and ex-police dog, Pax are a dynamite team that's hard to beat... I eagerly await Sister Agatha's next adventure." – Earlene Fowler, author of Delectable Mountains "Aimee and David Thurlo's nimble plotting leaves readers turning pages while Our Lady of Hope Monastery's compelling characters draw you into their richly textured world. Sister Agatha is a blessing and you'll believe in Prey for a Miracle!" --Julia Spencer-Fleming, Edgar finalist and author of To Darkness and to Death Our Lady of Hope is an aging monastery run by a cloistered order in rural New Mexico. Perennially cash-strapped for needed repairs and maintenance, when the local diocese offers to pay for a new water well it is, well, a godsend. But there's a catch – in return, they want the monastery to house a novice nun from a different order who needs a place to stay locally while she teaches at the Catholic school and an order to take responsibility for her while she's there. And Sister Josephine – Sister Jo as she likes to be called – is a handful. Loud, boisterous, free with her opinions, inappropriate, impulsive and snores loud enough to wake the dead, the young nun doesn't fit in well with the contemplative order and the older nuns of Our Lady of Hope. If the teeth-grinding of the older nuns and the repetitive deep sighs of the Reverand Mother weren't enough, there's also the increasingly dangerous sounding threats that arrive at the monestary. Since Sister Agatha has been involved in her fair share of investigations, there's no lack of people who might harbor a grudge against her. But is she really the target? And is Sister Jo – who arrived right before the threats began – somehow entangled in this increasingly dangerous web?

When the local diocese offers to pay for renovations to the dilapidated Our Lady of Hope monastery in exchange for housing a novice nun from a different order, the contemplative order is delighted, until they meet the boisterous, inappropriate Sister Jo, who also may be the target of violent threats against the order, unless Sister Agatha can uncover the truth before it is too late. (Mystery & Detective)

Sister Agatha is an extern nun in the cloistered order at the Our Lady of Hope Monastery near a small New Mexican desert town. As such, Sister Agatha is the link between her cloistered sisters and the outside world. Usually this means running errands in the monastery's slowly dying car (dubbed the Anti-Chrystler) or their motorcycle, with Pax, the order's German Shepard, in the side car. But sometimes it means something a bit more -- like now when the diocese is upset by reports of a young girl whose parents claim is receiving visitations from the Virgin Mary and providing insight into future events. Wanting neither to ignore a real miracle, nor give credence to what might be merely an attempt to defraud the faithful, they ask Sister Agatha to investigate. But her inquires are soon complicated when the girl herself disappears, apparently having been kidnapped, and Sister Agatha will need more than faith to bring her home.

Winner of the 2019 SECAC Award for Excellence in Scholarly Research and Publication In The Riddle of Jael, Peter Scott Brown offers the first history of the Biblical heroine Jael in medieval and Renaissance art. Jael, who betrayed and killed the tyrant Sisera in the Book of Judges by hammering a tent peg through his brain as he slept under her care, was a blessed murderess and an especially fertile moral paradox in the art of the early modern period. Jael’s representations offer insights into key religious, intellectual, and social developments in late medieval and early modern society. They reflect the influence on art of exegesis, the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, humanism and moral philosophy, misogyny and the battle of the sexes, the emergence of syphilis, and the Renaissance ideal of the artist.

In the Mirror of the Prodigal Son provides a comprehensive history of the function of the parable of the prodigal son in shaping religious identity in medieval and Reformation Europe. By investigating a wealth of primary sources, the book reveals the interaction between commentaries, sermons, religious plays, and images as a decisive factor in the increasing popularity of the prodigal son. Pietro Delcorno highlights the ingenious and multifaceted uses of the parable within pastoral activities and shows the pervasive presence of the Bible in medieval communication. The prodigal son narrative became the ideal story to convey a discourse about sin and penance, grace and salvation. In this way, the parable was established as the paradigmatic biography of any believer.

God's will or the Devil's work? Owen Archer investigates a young runaway nun who claims to have been resurrected, setting a series of dark discoveries and violent deaths in motion. York, 1365. Dame Joanna Calverley of Leeds fled St. Clement's Priory with its precious relic - the milk of the Virgin - and died of fever soon after in Beverley. A MIRACLE RESURRECTION? Joanna is dead and buried . . . isn't she? Not according to housemaid Maddy, who finds Joanna in her master's house almost a year after her burial. Joanna claims to have risen from the dead and is seeking to return to the convent with the relic. Why did she disappear? Where is Will Longford, the master of the house? And how is the trail of death and destruction that follows linked to her supposed resurrection? THE TRUTH WON'T STAY BURIED FOR EVER . . . As Owen attempts to make sense of Joanna's troubled riddles, he unravels a dark family secret and the shocking truth behind the nun's tale. THE OWEN ARCHER MYSTERIES 1. The Apothecary Rose 2. The Lady Chapel 3. The Nun's Tale 4. The King's Bishop 5. The Riddle of St. Leonard's 6. The Gift of Sanctuary 7. A Spy for the Redeemer 8. The Cross-Legged Knight 9. The Guilt of Innocents 10. A Vigil of Spies 11. A Conspiracy of Wolves 12. A Choir of Crows 13. The Riverwoman's Dragon 14. A Fox in the Fold