The Rosary Murders - Softcover

Kienzle, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1449432808 ISBN 13: 9781449432805

Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC, 2012

Synopsis

"A sophisticated and baffling thriller . . . a real bone-freezer." —Publishers Weekly "Ingenious, witty, literate—at once irreverent and compassionate—an impressive tour indeed for a first-time novelist." —Los Angeles Times "Well-paced, tightly written, exciting as hell, and, quite possibly, the best mystery I've read in years." —Dallas Times-Herald The Rosary Murders was William X. Kienzle's first Father Koesler mystery, published in 1978. Twenty-three more books followed, creating a best-selling mystery series mostly set in Detroit and reflecting the personality of its hero, Father Robert Koesler, a diocesan priest with a penchant for sleuthing. The Rosary Murders was named one of the top twenty-five mysteries of the twentieth century in spring 2000 by the Chicago Sun-Times. It was also made into a movie, with Donald Sutherland in the role of Father Koesler. In The Rosary Murders, Detroit priests and nuns are being methodically murdered; all are found with a plain black rosary entwined between their fingers as a calling card. From Ash Wednesday, when the murderer first struck, the police seem helpless to solve the string of senseless murders. The weeks that follow become a nightmare for the crack homicide team headed by Lieutenant Walter Koznicki, until Father Koesler breaks the madmen's code. Here is a story with tension, excitement, intelligence, and a rare wit and humor. Kienzle painstakingly leads you through every step in an intensive police investigation of heinous series of murders. Police procedure and Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper reporting are as much a part of the action as the crimes themselves. With superb control of the novel's movement, Kienzle can tantalize at a tortoise's pace and torment with a breakneck hare's pace.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Father William Koesler, a Roman Catholic priest and editor of the Detroit Catholic, is the amateur detective of this series. The crimes he solves are an interesting tangle involving religion and ethics, much like Harry Kemelman's Rabbi series, but the Father Koesler mysteries are remarkable especially for the insights they offer into the lives of priests and nuns -- and for the fly-on-the-wall perspective on what priests actually talk about around the dinner table in the parish rectory. Is it true to life? Most likely it is; Kienzle spent two decades as a parish priest and, like his protagonist, edited a Catholic newspaper before he left the priesthood.

--Margaret Sanborn, Senior Publicity Copywriter

From the Inside Flap:

nuns are his targets. A plain black rosary entwined between the fingers of each victim is his calling card. The police don't have a clue, but Father Koesler sees a pattern -- a consuming religious obsession that can drive one man to serial murder. And to an unexpected and terrifying encounter inside the Father's own confessional.

About this edition

• Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1449432808
• ISBN 13: 9781449432805
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 312