Body Count — William X. Kienzle

"As regular as the solstice, Kienzle annually provides a new Catholic whodunit, inviting the readers to shut out the rest of the world and spend a few absorbing hours watching his venerable alter ego, Koesler, peel back the layers of a puzzle to plumb the tortured depths of the human should and elegantly solve a murder." -- Chicago Tribune

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I killed a priest." So begins Father Robert Koesler's fourteenth compelling involvement in a murder mystery. Echoing the moral dilemma of William X. Kienzle's classic mystery The Rosary Murders, Father Koesler is bound by the storied seal of the confessional. But is he? By odd coincidence, a new priest-in-residence, Father Nick Dunn, overhears the confession and Dunn, a product of the modern church, contests Father Koesler's need for silence. To his further distress, Father Koesler discovers that Father Dunn has joined him in his rectory not only to study at the University of Detroit, as he had claimed, but to apprentice himself to Father Koesler as an amateur detective!

In the extraordinary confession heard by both priests, they learn that the murder of the priest Father John Keating was part of a contract. The Detroit Police Department, unaware of Father John Keating's fate, calls on Father Koesler to aid in finding the missing priest. Father Koesler faces the ultimate dilemma. He knows that what the police think is a missing persons case actually is a homicide. He also knows whodunit, but may tell no one. More -- he must keep a tight rein on Father Dunn.

This page-turner is Kienzle at his finest: a narrative of murder most foul and most funny.