Here it is: the long awaited sequel to the cult-classic Bodies. Travel with the motleyest crew of reluctant companions the fictional world described by this book has ever seen. There's Gilbert, a bigoted former knight and idiot savant of swordplay, Carmelita, the sultry, seductive elf wench, Zappa, the world's most effeminate male dragon, and many, many more. They must save the world from destruction at the hands of a raging mega-demon by reassembling the Ring of Serpentium, the one item capable to stopping the demon's rampage across the known world.Death Wears a Big Hat picks up where Bodies left off and is nothing less than a full-throttle sleigh ride to the summit of Mount Excitement!

"An extraordinary tale of justice and morality . . ." —Otto Penzler, Edgar Award Winner and Owner of the Mysterious Bookshop, New York City "... another dandy tale of homicide with an ecclesiastic twist . . . a fast-moving plot with amusing sidelights." —New York Daily News "Every time I open a book, I hope this one is going to be really smashing, exciting, outstanding. This one is. Death Wears a Red Hat is the kind of mystery that I read the others to find. It has the right ingredients." —Houston Chronicle From William X. Kienzle, author of the classic murder mystery, The Rosary Murders. In Kienzle's second Father Koesler book, the streets of Detroit are stalked by an unknown assailant depositing the decapitated heads of Detroit citizens on the headless shoulders of church statues. But there does seem to be a method in the gruesome madness and Father Koesler is once again drawn into the investigation, this time at the request of Walter Koznicki, the inspector of homicide, and Lieutenant Ned Harris. Meanwhile, the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News, in the personages of Joe Cox and Pat Lennon, compete for prime coverage of the murders. But as the carefully executed murders continue unabated so does the city's state of fear and bewilderment.

The Tengen brothers planned to make themselves all the law there was in Coffin Creek and the surrounding Cochise County. Then the whole south east corner of Arizona would be theirs to plunder at will. Behind the tin stars they wore, the brothers were killers, pure and simple... But they'd reckoned without Calvin Taylor, former Indian scout turned Wells Fargo agent. Taylor would bring real law and order to the town, even if he had to do it at the point of a gun. The result was an explosion of violence and killing. Blood ran on the streets of Coffin Creek and a twisted trail of vengeance led high into the mountains of Apache country.

Zelda Popkin solves her intriguing mystery with a female detective named Mary Carner. Death Wears a White Gardenia is the first of a series of mystery novels featuring young, and pretty Mary Carner, a trained investigator on the security staff of a major department store in New York City in the late thirties and early forties. Mary Carner is analytical, intuitive, direct, tactful, independent, and receptive. Her character, emerging when it did, challenged the male gender-role stereotyping that for many years was all there was in detective fiction. By now, however, the female detective has found her place and is much admired in literature, film, and television. Zelda Popkin's Mary Carner was before her time. She emerges here again, a fully-conceived woman, a fully-conceived professional so we can see that today's female detectives, like Jessica Fletcher and V. I. Warshawski, follow in the footsteps that Zelda Popkin's Mary Carner marked so well. Boson Books also offers Time Off for Murder by Zelda Popkin. For an author bio and photo, reviews, and a reading sample, visit bosonbooks.com.

A helpful theological rethinking of the ministry of the church in and with the world in light of various forces that create despair.