William Xavier Kienzle (3 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. 289 pages. Royal octavo (9 1/4" x 6 1/4") bound in original publisher's quarter black cloth with white lettering to cloth over blue boards and white lettering to cover in original pictorial jacket. First edition. A hooker dressed in a nun's habit is shot dead at the shrine of her sister's convent. No clues, no motive and scant leads present the police with a parish puzzler. Father Robert Koesler attends the woman's wake, and soon finds himself swept into a bizarre and chilling case of multiple murder that begins with a nun under the gun and ends with Koesler under a cardinal's cassock . . . Condition: A near fine copy in like jacket.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. 258 pages. Royal octavo (9 1/4" x 6") bound in original publisher's quarter brown cloth with gilt lettering to spine over beige boards with gilt lettering to cover in original pictorial jacket. First edition. In "Deathbed," the eighth book in a series by acclaimed mystery writer William X. Kienzle, Father Robert Koesler takes on a temporary tour of duty as chaplain in a Detroit hospital whose dark passageways lead eventually to murder. But along the way, the antics of a security guard, a few nurse's aides, and a bumbling volunteer lead to madcap mayhem in a deft (and daft) counterpoint to the unfolding mystery. "Deathbed" follows the tracks of at least four people in St. Vincent's Hospital in Detroit whose rancor toward a single individual is so great it could translate into violence. The object of their wrath is an indomitable, unsinkable nun in her late sixties who almost single-handedly keeps the inner-city Detroit hospital open. As Father Koesler begins to learn what really goes on in a hospital, he discovers that St. Vincent's beds are used for more than convalescence. And in the Keystone Kop-like gropings in dim corridors, the real question becomes, Who's doing what to whom? Condition: Jacket corners and spine ends chipped and rubbed, back heal corner with tear and chip light edge wear.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. 304 pages. Royal octavo (9 1/4" x 6") bound in original publisher's black boards with red lettering to spine and pictorial cover in original pictorial jacket. First edition. Another grisly series of religion-tinged Detroit murders to be solved by Father Robert Koesler (The Rosary Murders, 1979)--while the Detroit cops and Detroit news-folk also sleuth at length. The victims: a top racketeer, a top pimp, an abortion-mill doctor, a con-man, etc.--all evil types (Kienzle shows them in action) whose decapitated heads are discovered in sacred spots around Detroit's Catholic churches (in the Cardinal's ornamental hat, on statues of saints). There are virtually no followable clues (except phony ones implicating priests) till figures of disreputable St. Expeditus are found at the homes of two victims, implying. . . voodoo. That's a bit hard to take (though cobra venom is also involved), as are the pseudo-sane motive for the killings (a ""statement on the nature of evil"") and Kienzle's unconvincing portrayal of the various deaths (all the dying wrongdoers hallucinate and die of fright in exactly the same way, with their victims materializing before their eyes). Furthermore, the multitude of sleuths and the repetitiousness of the murders combine to produce a meandering focus. Still, much of the dialogue is snappy, there are assorted running gags (black-comic, silly, erudite), and those with a taste for both ecclesiastical hijinks and low-down gore will find this energetic Condition: Dust wrapper rubbed at spine head else very good to fine in a very good to fine dust jacket.