The Weeping Priest — Sara M. Barton

Mobster...murderer...IRA terrorist....Paddy O'Hurley ruled with an iron fist and no one was safe! At the height of the Troubles, Irish-American crime boss Pádraig O'Hurley amassed a fortune protecting drug traffickers and smugglers in New England. No one did business without his permission. Nicknamed the Taxman, he insisted on a cut from every deal that went on. And if he caught anyone cheating him, he used torture to deliver a message. Nobody messed with Paddy O'Hurley! But when he began to seek missile technology for the IRA, he became a serious national security threat. His Irish-American contacts in law enforcement were willing to look the other way as the Taxman's ambitions grew. FBI Special Agent Mike Cox understood just how dangerous O'Hurley was, and as he began the Herculean effort to bring down this vicious monster, he disappeared. He wasn't the only FBI agent to lose his life, thanks to the mobster. As the body count grew, the FBI Special Investigations team in Washington took a closer look. And that's when agents learned that Paddy O'Hurley was tormenting priests, coercing them into compliance with his crime syndicate. When Father James, a man of conscience, refused to bend to Paddy O'Hurley's will, hitman after hitman was deployed to murder the priest. Why? He knew too much. Enter Neil Cox, a Navy SEAL and son of missing FBI Agent Mike Cox. Determined to find his father's remains and bring them home for burial, the determined young man worked with the FBI Special Investigations team and the CIA. The plan? Separate Pádraig O'Hurley from the IRA terrorists, so that peace negotiations could begin in earnest in Northern Ireland and the IRA would stand down. Then, and only then, could investigators crush O'Hurley's frightening hold on the local population and find the lost souls victimized by the sadistic megalomaniac publicly lauded as a modern day Robin Hood. Luckily the CIA had a couple of aces up its sleeve overseas. Rand Morgan, a seasoned veteran, agreed to shadow Father James on his pilgrimage through Italy, in hopes of uncovering information that could be used to stop O'Hurley. But Morgan's mission took a desperate turn at the Sanctuary di Oropa, forcing him to flee in the middle of the night with Father James and another priest. Who would survive this perilous battle of wills?