C. J. Patrick

When the Parish Falls C. J. Patrick

What if something that you have always taken for granted turned out to be something so wrong that it shook you to your very foundation. Something your parents would never allow you to question while you grew up. That is the case in which attorney Donegan Coffey found himself after being raised in a devout Irish catholic family. Coffey's mother died three days after he finished the bar exam. His mother's death put him in a tail spin for about eleven years. Coffey self medicated on alcohol while building his legal practice until he finally started coming out of it after moving out of the neighborhood parish in which he was raised. His father remained in the family homestead and got older and required the assistance of Coffey and his seven brothers and sisters. They all banded together to care for their father as the neighborhood around him changed. All tried to keep him safe until one night the parish priest was found murdered in the alley outside of the rectory. As this only happened three blocks from his father's house, Coffey felt compelled to look into the circumstances of Father Mike's murder who had been a close family friend for some thirty years. As Coffey investigates the murder, he uncovers a past that calls into question all the religious beliefs that his parents had drilled into his head while growing up. The final outcome makes Coffey question everything about his mother's beliefs, the church and the parish in which he was raised.