Anne Fitzgerald

Created by James Patterson

“Kathleen Beavier was a virgin. She’d never had sexual intercourse. But she was pregnant.”

This ex-sister is doing it for herself.

ANNE FITZGERALD earned her masters in psychology from Harvard. She spent three and a half years with the Boston Police Department while paying her way through school, and discovered she liked everything about the work except the old boy network that ran the department, so she left and hung out her own shingle in the Back Bay area and became a P.I. on the mean streets of Boston.

Psychology degree and police department connections aside, Anne is not just a female version of Patterson’s more famous sleuth, Washington D.C. cop Alex Cross.

Nope. Unlike Cross, Anne used to be a nun. She entered the novitiate at fourteen and spent a few years sporting a wimple and sensible oxfords within the walls of St. Mary’s Dominican convent, but left after attracting the forbidden attention of Father Justin O’Carroll.

Although it has been seven years since she was a nun, she is the Archdiocese of Boston’s first choice when they have a problem. She has investigated a priest accussed of rape and a shooting within one of their churches in the past, so when they need someone to investigate the discovery of a pregnant virgin, Kathleen Beavier,  in the 2000 standalone, Cradle and All, Cardinal John Rooney pays her a visit.

It soon develops that Kathleen is not alone. There’s another pregnant virgin and the race is on to determine which bears the new messiah, and which the spawn of evil itself as fortold in visions at Fatima so many years ago. As a former nun, Anne has just the mixture of faith and skepticism for the job at hand.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James Patterson, the world’s bestselling author, may be best known as the creator of Alex Cross, but he has probably produced, alone and with his numerous collaborators, more fictional detective heroes than any other novelist alive. Including Philadelphia private eyes Veena Lion & Cooper Lamb, and the bestselling Private series, which follows the adventures of various operatives for a large international detective agency with offices all over the world, coincidentally written with writers from all over the world. Patterson? He lives in Florida with his family.

HMMM….

Apparently this is a “reimagined version” of one of Patterson’s long out-of-print novels, Virgin (1980), with the woo-woo elements toned down and the popular culture refs updated and ramped up.

UNDER OATH

• “…exciting and moving…tackles issues of faith with admirable gusto…”
  — Publisher’s Weekly
• “Warn the fans: this isn’t a new Alex Cross psychokiller foray (Pop Goes the Weasel, 1999, etc.), but instead a rewritten and retitled version of Virgin, Patterson’s apocalyptic 1980 horror novel.”
  — Kirkus Reviews
• “… a good, spooky tale… Patterson’s usual clean, fast-paced prose, a creepy plot, and a twisted ending make this one hard to put down. Recommended, especially for fans of The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby.
  — Rebecca House Stankowski (Purdue University)

EVIDENCE

• “The truth was, I just didn’t believe in virgin births anymore.”
  — Anne’s thoughts on her new case
• “I stared into the steamy pier glass, still awed, amazed, and amused that I’d emerged from my nun-y duckling feathers with what could pass as a model’s body. Well, almost. Well, in my dreams.”
  — Anne on how far from her convent days she has really come.

NOVELS

• Cradle and All (2000) | Buy this book  | Buy the audio | Buy this book

Respectfully submitted by Dale Stoyer.