Murder Most Divine: Ecclesiastical Tales of Unholy Crimes

Among the Ten Commandments, Thou Shalt Not Kill is self-evidently one of the most basic and fundamental of them all. Even so, there are those who would break that commandment with impunity, as there also are those who enthusiastically break them all. Sometimes those who seek out and bring these transgressors to justice are men and women of the cloth, whose exploration of the mysteries of the divine uniquely qualify them to uncover the frailties of their fellow man. From G. K. Chesterton’s classic priest-turned-detective Father Brown to Peter Tremayne’s historical Celtic nun and lawyer, Sister Fidelma, religious men and women put aside their professional duties for a moment and take up an altogether different vocation for a short time - that of detective. Stories in this collection of ecclesiastical sleuthing are: The Stripper by Anthony Boucher; The Wrong Shape by G. K. Chesterton; Jemima Shore’s First Case by Antonia Fraser; The Sweating Statue by Edward D. Hoch; Bingo Next Time by Ralph McInerny; Miss Butterfingers by Monica Quill; In the Confessional by Alice Scanlon Reach; Hemlock at Vespers by Peter Tremayne; Conventional Spirit by Sharan Newman; Mea Culpa by Jan Burke; When Your Breath Freezes by Kathleen Dougherty