By Margaret S.
Hamilton
“Sister Justicia Marie thought it was going to be a
beautiful day in LA, full of mercy and grace, until she had to break a man’s
finger at lunch.”
Meet Sister J, founding member of the Sisters of Perpetual
Justice and their homeless shelter in Los Angeles. In her pre-convent life,
Sister J was the child actress Brooke Bailey. As a young adult, Brooke studied
Krav Maga and other martial arts in preparation for her movie roles. After she
was fired while filming her last movie, she found God in a shaft of sunlight on
the Santa Monica clifftops overlooking the Pacific Coast Highway.
Sister J drives
a 10 year old Saturn, indulges in Fritos and Coca Cola, and uses Ave Maria
as her cell phone ring tone. I suspect she’s in her mid-thirties.
The series is comprised of six novelettes, each about fifteen thousand words. Sister J leaves her elementary school teaching career to found a much-needed homeless shelter in a seedy area of Los Angeles. Each novelette addresses a crime that has been committed, and Sister J’s use of force to restore justice. The novelettes are “skinny” and remind me of graphic novels or thirty-minute TV shows plots.
Sister J flaunts her disrespect for her Mother Superior and
Bishop but attends confession regularly and embraces the teachings of the
Church. She feeds the hungry, houses the homeless, and rescues lost souls on a
regular basis. My favorite lost soul is a teenager boy she catches painting
graffiti on her shelter building. Instead of turning him over to the police,
she hires him to paint a mural of Jesus stilling the waters.
The novelettes are delightful, each as crisp as one potato
chip, leaving the reader craving more. Sister J routinely deals with lowlife
gangsters, drug dealers, and a nightclub magician, using “harm for good” as she
stops criminals committing heinous crimes.
James Scott Bell notes that his son gave him the idea of a
vigilante nun and the title for the series. He wrote the novelettes in between
writing other, longer, works.
Readers and Writers, does the idea of a vigilante nun appeal
to you?
Margaret S. Hamilton writes the Jericho Mysteries series and
has published forty mystery short stories.
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