Review: Saint’s Gate – Carla Neggers

Saint’s Gate by Carla Neggers
Series:  Sharpe and Donovan #1
Release Date:  August 23, 2011
Publisher:   Mira
Page Count:  400
Source:  NetGalley

When Emma Sharpe is summoned to a convent on the Maine coast, it’s partly for her art crimes work with the FBI, partly because of her past with the religious order. At issue is a mysterious painting depicting scenes of Irish lore and Viking legends, and her family’s connection to the work. But when the nun who contacted her is murdered, it seems legend is becoming deadly reality.

Colin Donovan is one of the FBI’s most valuable assets—a deep-cover agent who prefers to go it alone. He’s back home in Maine after wrapping up his latest mission, but his friend Father Bracken presents him with an intrigue of murder, international art heists and a convent’s long-held secrets that is too tempting to resist. As the danger spirals ever closer, Colin is certain of only one thing—the very intriguing Emma Sharp is at the center of it all.

A ruthless killer has Emma and Colin in the cross hairs, plunging them into a race against time and drawing them deeper into a twisted legacy of betrayal and deceit.

Special Agent Emma Sharpe receives a call that takes her back to the Sisters of the Joyful Heart convent she left four years before.  Sister Joan is secretive in why she wants to meet with Emma, saying she’ll explain when she shows her the painting.  But Emma never gets to see that painting because Sister Joan is murdered while trying to retrieve a key.

That murder rocks the town.  It also disturbs temporary priest Finian Bracken who drags his friend, Special Agent Colin Donovan into finding out what happened with Sister Joan.

Colin was escaping into the wilderness to try and get his bearings after being undercover on a tough case.  He was letting the dust settle, letting the bad guys (and some of the good) think he was dead.  But Father Bracken’s request pulls him into the investigation that’s practically at his back door.  

Colin is immediately drawn to Emma, but at the same time he question whether or not she was involved it what happened at the convent.  But as he and Emma start digging into what really happened that afternoon he discovers that he really likes Emma.  Even when the knowledge of her being close to taking her final vows as a nun comes out (which should have had him backing off) he finds himself pulling closer to her and delving deeper into the case.

 The mystery storyline had you guessing whodunit almost to the very end.  I flipped back and forth a couple times almost sure that characters had committed the murder (and yes, I was even considering a couple of the nuns).

I was slightly hung up on how a person goes from almost taking vows as a nun to doing a complete 180 and becoming an FBI agent, but that little tidbit makes you try to figure Emma out.  What would make a person go through all that and then change their mind?  We don’t really get into that, but seeing as this is the first book in the series, I have a feeling Colin may get more of that information out.