The ninth circle of Dante's hell is where we find those who have betrayed a special relationship-such as the one between priest and child. It is this spiritual pit we encounter "Along the River Road." Sister Margaret Donovan, a former sheriff's deputy, has turned in her gun and badge to take the veil. She works as parish administrator for a small congregation in rural southern Illinois. The idyllic assignment turns dark when an elderly priest is assigned to say mass on Sundays. Some in the church recognize him. A suicide in the parish alerts Margaret that there is something awry, but she gets...

When a sheriff's deputy is brutally murdered, fellow deputy Margaret Donovan-his lover-now finds herself questioning every choice she has made as her life spins out of control. Margaret, the daughter of a well-respected Sheriff, struggles to find meaning in life and falls back on the faith she was raised in. A friendship develops between her and a nun from the local convent that reawakens that faith. In time, she hands in her badge and gun and takes the veil. When she is about to make her final profession, two students at Saint Dominic's High School are murdered. Her old boss the Sheriff asks...