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----------------------------Original message---------------------------- This review appeared in the Feb. 21, 1999 issue of the NYT Book Review. Amy " Taking inspiration from those overwrought scenes of religious ecstasy beloved of the Baroque painters, T. C. Van Adler has written a morbidly funny debut mystery in ST. AGATHA'S BREAST (St. Martin's, $22.95). For years, the priests of San Redempto, a decrepit monastic order in the heart of Rome, were so busy indulging their private vices they failed to notice that thieves had been systematically plundering the monastery of its treasures. But when someone makes off with six paintings from a ghastly series of martyrdom studies executed by the 17th-century master Nicolas Poussin, the prior reluctantly orders the Rev. Brocard Curtis, the archivist of the order, to find the culprits. That fatal decree invites a maelstrom of violence that finishes off the dirty old monks and dooms San Redempto to oblivion. Had the pseudonymous Van Adler (who the publisher says ''works for the Roman Catholic Church'') wrapped up the story with the grand scene that puts an apocalyptic end to all the corruption, depravity and debauchery, this farce would have the operatic ending it deserves. But an overlong and anticlimactic continuation of the story spoils all the fun. " -----end >