The Sacrifice

November 29, 1999
The latest in the author's long-running series of didactic mysteries featuring Detroit priest Father Robert Koesler (following Till Death) restores a better balance between mystery and religion. As usual, a thorny religious issue is at the center of things, and Kienzle has posited a doozy. Father George Wheatley, an Episcopal priest of some renown, has undertaken to convert to Roman Catholicism. That decision has caused great consternation in Wheatley's family as well as shock in the Episcopal and Roman communities. In addition to continuing to flog the changes wrought by Vatican II, the author explores such issues as the differences and similarities between Anglicans, Episcopalians and Romans (all of whom consider themselves Catholics), and whether Catholic priests should be permitted to marry and women allowed to become priests. Sharing center stage, and danger, with Wheatley are Father Koesler, who has befriended him during his conversion, and Father Zachary Tully, whose church will be the site of Wheatley's ordination. Plenty of folk are opposed to Wheatley's ordination, including his (Episcopal) priest son, Ron; his seminarian daughter, Alice; and various lay and clerical Roman Catholics who see Wheatley's conversion as one more assault on their venerable church. When a murderer strikes before the ordination can take place, Koesler and the police must scramble to unmask someone willing to kill for his or her beliefs. In a series that has not been aging well, this is a refreshingly strong entry.

April 1, 2001
The impending ordination of a former Episcopal priest into the Catholic church in Detroit turns into murder when an explosion at the altar kills a priest. Homicide detective Tully, retired detective Koznicki, Father Robert Koesler (series "resource person"), and George Wheatley, the "changeling," immediately analyze, inform, and hypothesize. Suspects are numerous, including two of Wheatley's own children one an Episcopal priest, the other a closet lesbian seminarian so police face an uphill struggle. A tedious exposition, argumentative and/or didactic digressions, and cheap narrative tricks label this a potboiler; nevertheless, buy for Kienzle's (The Rosary Murders) steady following.

Copyright 2001 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.