Popsicle Styx — John T. Biggs

Richard Harjo, PhD, DD, is an Oklahoma death-row chaplain whose job is to prepare inmates to meet their maker. That's a challenge for any minister, especially one who has serious doubts about a supreme being. He thought he'd never get his faith back -- until he met a Choctaw murderer named Holabi Minco, who might be a witch. In the tradition of his people, Minco keeps a calendar made of sticks â€" popsicle sticks, since they come with lunch. He writes people's names on the sticks with his blood, and when their day comes up, they die. Some of those people are on the execution roster, but some aren't. Richard learns he may be part of Holabi's ritual. And when Holabi's beautiful daughter Kinta Minco enters the picture, her other admirers -- a corrupt prison guard and a white supremacist who are stalking her -- make things difficult. With his hands full escorting killers to the execution chamber and making love to Kinta, Harjo hardly notices he's caught up in a complex plot to break Holabi Minco out of prison. Will the mystical Minco avoid execution?