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J. R. Mathis
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The Penitent Priest: A Contemporary Small Town Amateur Sleuth Mystery (The Father Tom Mysteries Book 1) Kindle Edition

by J. R. Mathis (Author), Susan Mathis (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 3,796 ratings
See all formats and editions

My wife died in my arms, the victim of a nameless killer's bullet. I should have died with her. But God had other plans for me.

Fifteen years later, I'm back where it all happened. I just want to forget, but the past won't leave me alone.

Now, I'm asking a woman who I left broken-hearted twenty years before to catch my wife's killer.

I'm Father Tom Greer, a Catholic priest, and I'm playing with fire.

Enjoy this first book in a new series featuring Father Tom, a 21st Century Father Brown.

This is a new edition of the original book published in May, 2020. The whodunit remains the same, but the backstories and subplots have been revised.
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  1. Book 1 of 12
    The Father Tom Mysteries
  2. Print length
    324 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  5. Publication date
    May 23, 2020
  6. File size
    1305 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Susan Mathis was born in and grew up in an extremely small town in Alachua County, Florida where her family has lived for more than 100 years. When Susan was still very young, James (J.R) Mathis was born in a somewhat bigger small town about 100 miles south of where she lived. Within a decade, James' small town would become part of Orlando, the biggest tourist destination in the United States. He was not amused. That is how, while Susan was running barefoot, swimming in lakes full of alligators and feeding chickens, James was sitting in his bedroom reading books faster than his father could bring them home from the library.

Were James and Susan to write their love story, it would definitely be an enemies-to-lovers trope. They met in the library where he was working. He found her demands for books that he had to pull and bring to her so unreasonable that he actually turned her into the head librarian. She in turn was so anxious to drive him away that when some friends secretly set them up she laid out an entire speech about how miserable her life was (she is typically very upbeat). Little did she suspect that he had a passionate attraction to misery and they were married just over a year later.

Fast forward 26 years, three children, four grandchildren and 20 years of James working for the Federal government. He was diagnosed with a highly treatable but still very scary form of cancer. As so often happens, this brush with mortality inspired him to do something he'd always wanted to do, write a novel. After the publication of the second Father Tom Mystery, Susan joined him as coauthor. As far as the Mathises are concerned, writing together is the most fun a couple can have sitting at a computer.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B086RYHYC6
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mercy and Justice Mysteries (May 23, 2020)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 23, 2020
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1305 KB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 324 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 3,796 ratings

About the author

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J. R. Mathis

J. R. Mathis

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J. R. Mathis and his wife, Susan, write The Father Tom Mysteries. The proud parents of three adult children and six grandchildren, they currently live in Florida. After J. R. retires, however, he and Susan plan to travel the country, write mysteries, and enjoy life together (along with any grandchildren they have in tow).

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
3,796 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Glynn Young
5.0 out of 5 stars Now a priest, he helps police find his wife's killer
Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2023
Verified Purchase
Father Tom Greer has been assigned to a temporary position at Saint Clare’s Church. The current priest is on sick leave for four months, and Father Tom has been working as an archivist for his archbishop in Baltimore. The archbishop thinks it would be a good idea to push Father Tom out into the world.

But Myersburg? Father Tom knows it only too well. This is where he was living 15 years before when his wife Joan was murdered. The killer was never found. His former mother-in-law is still here, as are a number of friends. And he’s managing it okay, until he discovers that he may not have known his wife as well as he thought he had. Like about her previous marriage. And spending time in a mental institution. And taking medication for bipolar disorder. And about the person who’d been stalking her. And the police didn’t know either.

And things begin to happen, like in the confessional box. A local filmmaker gets interested in the story, as does a rather unethical journalist from Baltimore who’s convinced Father Tom was the one who killed his wife. And he never told the police everything that happened the night Joan was killed.

And to make the situation even more complex, an old girlfriend, the girl who once he thought he might marry, is now the lead detective on the police force, transferred there from the Washington, D.C., area under something of a cloud.

“The Penitent Priest” is the first of 12 Father Tom mysteries by the husband-and-wife writing team of J.R. Mathis and Susan Mathis. It’s the story of a Catholic priest with a past, a past he’s avoided confronting until he has no choice. And then he decides he wants to confront, to find out what happened, and to find his wife’s killer.

The Mathis team has two writing series – the Father Tom series and 12 books (so far) in the Mercy and Justice series. They have one of the more unusual author bios (see the web site), and they live in Florida.

“The Penitent Priest” is a fast-paced, well-done story with an unusual hero / detective. It’s a story in which just when you think you have it figured out, you don’t.
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Kindle Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Musings
Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2024
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I found the book entertaining and an easy read. It has a good plot and holds you in suspence well.
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C. Potts
5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and Intriguing
Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2022
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Father Tom Greer's wife died in his arms. She was the victim of a nameless killer's bullet. Fifteen years later, he is back where it all happened. He just wants to forget, but the past will not leave him alone. He is asking a woman he left broken hearted 20 years before to catch his wife's killer. Father Greer, a Catholic priest, is playing with fire. -- This is interesting from beginning to end. Even though I guessed the mystery answers before they were revealed, I loved the book. Father Tom is a great character, as are others in the book. I highly recommend this well-written intriguing read.
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Becky Brannon
5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome Mystery
Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2023
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Thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. In fact, I couldn’t put it down. Easy to visualize the characters and surrounding details.
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She hunts the ridgetops.
4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent story... in need of work.
Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2022
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This is a grand mystery. Well written, but in sore need of a professional editor, instead of a computer editing program. "Shears" aren't "sheer", "lies" has only one "s", and the author apparently has a phobia against Chicago rules involving punctuation. Commas and semicolons, in particular. It's distracting. A shame.
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars A priest under suspicion
Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2023
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Fr. Tom Greer returns to the small town where his wife was murdered 15 years ago - a murder that was unsolved. The characters are the same, but Fr. Tom is not. After his wife's murder, he left town, riddled with guilt that he couldn't save the woman he loved, and became a priest. When he returns for a 4 month assignment to the local parish, he joins a college student and an up-and-coming reporter to re-investigate the cold case murder. The reporter ends up murdered, and the mystery gets deeper. This story has a number of twists & turns, and I was satisfied that, in the end, the crimes are solved.
One person found this helpful
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Dr. Cathy Goodwin
3.0 out of 5 stars Good writing but a lot of errors
Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2022
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I got this book on a day it was offered for free. Mysteries featuring priests and nuns are hard to resist. The writing is very good and so is the pacing. I skimmed sections of the book to move ahead but wasn't ready to give up entirely, peek at the ending and move on (as I've done with some books).

The biggest negative for me is that the writers seem completely unfamiliar with the workings of the Catholic church. With today's shortage of priests. the diocese doesn't just order a priest to go somewhere; the priests I've talked to said there's a dialogue. A priest who really doesn't want to go somewhere would most likely not be sent. It's possible but not likely Tom would be sent to his former residence. And if he's attached to the archdiocese as an archivist, wouldn't he spend weekends as a relief priest in different dioceses? In fact, given the priest shortage, wouldn't this job usually go to a layperson?

The dead giveaway is that Tom keeps calling the Archbishop "your eminence." The correct title is "your grace." I would expect the archbishop to delegate priestly assignments to his staff.

As others pointed out, the police investigation must have been incredibly sloppy; normally they'd review all the dead woman's possessions. I'm also astounded that Tom's wife (from before he became a priest) would have kept so many secrets - really big secrets - from him. Similarly, Tom says he didn't invite his mother to the wedding and there's no mention of his. family anywhere. At one point he says the wife understood why he wouldn't want to talk about his mother...but for most women, that would be a huge red flag.

The story itself moves quickly, although at some point the twists and turns began to be far-fetched. Coincidences abound: the new detective on the local force is...who?! The identity of the murderer is subtly revealed early in the book; anyone who's read a lot of murder mysteries will know this is The One. Tom's emotional displays got to be a little too much. He would have had to undergo psychological evaluations to become a priest and his lack of closure might have raised concerns in real life.

I'm curious to see if these errors were fixed in future volumes in the series. It's hard to keep reading after a certain amount of "This couldn't have happened." The series seems self-published, and their success seems due to to the authors' tenacity and writing style.
6 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Marilynn Kalyn
5.0 out of 5 stars You have to pay close attentio
Reviewed in Canada on January 24, 2022
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Was very good .kind of like Father Brown on TV
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Amazon customer Barbw
5.0 out of 5 stars Can you solve this mystery?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 13, 2022
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This book is not like Father Brown. It is a story of insanity, religion and love. An enjoyable book that revisits an old murder that causes old wounds to be open. When Father Tom is sent to the town where he had a past life, a recurring nightmare returns. Could he help solve the cold case of his murdered wife without losing his mind? What are people hiding and would a proposed TV documentary solve the murder ? A great story with a difference, one I couldn't put down.
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Samar khan
5.0 out of 5 stars Father Romantic?
Reviewed in India on March 25, 2021
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Well I was very much happy while reading this, nice story and thriller but how come you're are showing a love angle of a father (with Helen). It was not really a kind of message people should get from a father no matter if he is young or old. It was an amazing book otherwise.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Read!
Reviewed in Australia on January 3, 2022
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A book I really enjoyed. Three dimensional characters, eminently believable, well-developed plot. I’m looking forward to reading the next book.
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DD
4.0 out of 5 stars returning to face your past and confront difficult truths
Reviewed in Canada on January 24, 2022
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Good read, a story of returning home and confronting past event and hidden secrets. . Bit of a twist at the end
One person found this helpful
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