2nd Father Koesler Mystery

In a spate of bizarre killings, revenge is the motive and decapitation the method. The first head is recovered from beneath a cardinal's red hat. The next specimens are perched on the shoulders of church statues throughout Detroit. What do the victims have in common? All of them were once criminal masterminds, men who had conceived the most monstrous crimes in the city's history. Now a murderer is out for justice, and Father Koesler ventures into terrifying rituals of revenge that predate Christianity. If the detective-cum-priest is right, the critical clues to these macabre murders lie in pagan rites and the barbarian past.

"Another dandy tale of homicide with an ecclesiastical twist . . . A fast-moving plot with amusing sidelights." (New York Daily News)