The Cosmic Ray Heresy

"Two mothers asked me who you were at the PeeWee soccer match yesterday, Frank. I just said, 'Oh him? He's a Catholic priest and a physics professor, cosmic rays—that kind of stuff, and is helping a woman detective catch whoever is trying to kill us. He's also my fiancé.' They gave me a strange look. I don't think they'll be inviting Olivia and Joey over for any more play dates."Frank Donnelly is a physics professor at a Philadelphia university and a Catholic priest; a rare combination but not unique. What may be more unusual is that Frank is also married, one of less than a hundred such priests in the United States. When his wife is killed in a tragic accident Frank is left to raise his young daughter alone. Eventually he falls in love with Vicki Meyers, a young widow mystery. As their love grows, and they struggle with the difficulties of raising children as single parents, Frank and Vicki form a "virtual" family and join with other young families in an endless round of soccer matches, birthday parties, and car pooling while Frank uses with a small boy and a teacher in the parish school where Frank is the weekend assistant. The Vatican is not amused at Frank's petition to marry — and that is not his only problem. He has been receiving threatening emails suggesting that he is not a "true" priest and a woman detective investigating the threats discovers similar ones on the computer of a murdered elderly priest. Could Frank and those he loves be in danger? He and the detective team up to find the murderer and presumed author of the emails. In Frank's physics lab a routine student experiment to observe cosmic rays produces an unusual number of tracks but only when Frank is near the apparatus, and only when he is carrying a Holy Communion wafer. As a scientist Frank is reluctant to consider a supernatural explanation and he and an astrophysicist friend conduct experiments to find a physical explanation of the the cosmic ray phenomenon as "ecclesiastical blackmail" to push the Vatican toward an unprecedented concession.