On Christmas Eve morning in 1933, the head of the Armenian Church in America, Archbishop Ghevont Tourian, is stabbed to death with a double-edged butcher knife as he begins Sunday services. His infamous murder in a little New York City church is witnessed by hundreds of parishioners - among them, a newspaper reporter named Tom Peterson. The next day, this story is splashed on the front page of every major daily in Manhattan. And no wonder. Not since the assassination of Thomas Becket has such a high religious leader been slain in a house of worship. This gruesome homicide shatters the Armenian community and confounds the cops. Was it a terrorist attack to silence a political adversary, a KGB plot to discredit anti-communists in America, or simply a tragic turn in an ancient, bitter dispute? Murder at the Altar is a work of historical fiction, although it might more accurately be called "dramatized history." The book interweaves past and present accounts of these complex events, alternating between "Now" and "Then" chapters which are written in first- and third-person voices respectively. Much of the text is based on interviews with survivors, court transcripts and newly declassified FBI files. There are also actual news clips as well as some previously unpublished photos available to further illustrate the story.

Ellie Quicke, newly widowed, is sure she saw something the night a body was left in the church opposite her house, but now her own life seems to be under threat.

The tragic death of 13-year-old Danny Croteau in 1972 faded from headlines and memories for 20 years until the Boston abuse scandal--a string of assaults within the Catholic Church--exploded in the early 2000s. Despite numerous indications--including 40 claims of sexual misconduct with minors--pointing to him as Croteau's killer, the Reverend Richard R. Lavigne remains "innocent." Drawing on more than 10,000 pages of police and court records and interviews with Danny's friends and family, fellow abuse victims, and church officials, the author uncovers the truth--church complicity in a cover up and the masking of priests' involvement in a ring of abusive clergy--behind Croteau's death and those who had a hand in it.

One Sunday morning in 1993 a 16-year-old girl named Eliza Claps goes missing from a church in the centre of Potenza, Italy. Shortly before her disappearance, Elisa had met Danilo Restivo, a strange local boy with a fetish for cutting women's hair on the back of buses. Elisa's family are convinced that Resitvo is responsible for their daughter's disappearance, but he is protected by local big-wigs: by his Sicilian father, by a doctor with links to organised crime, by a priest who had vices of his own. Years went by and Elisa's family could find only false leads. 2002, and Restivo is now living in Bournemouth. In November that year, his neighbour is found murdered, with strands of her own hair in her hands. Once again the police are at a loss to pin anything on him. It's not until 2010, when Elisa's decomposed body is found in the church where she went missing, that the two cases are linked and Restivo is finally dealt with. Blood on the Altar combines a gripping true crime case with Jones's deep understanding of Italian culture - the impunity it offers to the powerful - he so expertly demonstrated in his bestseller: The Dark Heart of Italy.

Cambridge, 1933. On All Hallows’ Eve, in a candlelit pew in ancient All Hallows Church, Doctor Adelaide Hartest witnesses a stranger’s dying moments. Adelaide is just in time to hear his final confession: that he has plunged the dagger into his own chest, and that his death will be a suicide, despite its suspicious appearance. But his confession isn’t enough to halt an investigation. The victim, it is revealed, is known to Scotland Yard, and his death is a matter of national concern. Assistant Commissioner Joe Sandilands is sent up from London to discover the truth. Thrown into a deadly ring of cloak-and-dagger intrigue and high-society hedonism, Sandilands chases a phantom killer through Cambridge’s aristocracy, intelligentsia, cutting-edge researchers, and a clandestine ring of female spies. What secret was the dead man hiding, and what is at stake?

Two brothers are targeted to be murdered during High Mass. One is killed but the other escapes and exacts a terrible revenge on the assassins