Former trial lawyer Andrew Nugent was called to the bar before he was called to the monastery and has travelled from being novice-master to master of crime fiction. In 1961 he became a Benedictine monk at Glenstal Abbey, going on to study theology at Strasbourg from 1964–68, ending with a Master’s degree (and the Student Revolution – not his sole responsibility). Currently Prior of Glenstal Abbey, Andrew has spent nine years in a monastery in Nigeria. He spends a month every summer in a parish in the States and has a great deal of experience as a counsellor and retreat leader. His first novel, The Four Courts Murder, was published by Headline in 2005, followed a year later by Second Burial for a Black Prince, which centres around the death of a young Nigerian immigrant in Ireland. He has also written The Slow-Release Miracle, “my personal synthesis: what I think the spiritual life is all about”, published jointly by Paulist Press (N.J.) and Columba Press (Dublin).