Parishioner: A Novel

Xavier Rule Mysteries, Book 1

“Walter Mosley is on my Mount Rushmore of crime fiction.”—S.A. Cosby

Crooks make the best detectives. They know how the guilty think and where the guilty hide.

From bestselling “master of the genre” (Washington Post) Walter Mosley, a thrilling novel about a hardened criminal who regrets his violent past—but whose only hope for redemption is to sin again.

In a small town between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, a simple white-stone church sits atop a hill. It belongs to no denomination. Its priest, Father Frank, never speaks of God. The members of his congregation have broken every one of the commandments. They have gathered here to seek forgiveness.

Xavier Rule—Ecks to his friends—didn’t come to California searching for salvation. A thief and a killer on the run from the law, he expected to disappear. But under Father Frank’s strange ministry, Ecks has started to forgive himself and others for past misdeeds. Then Benol Richards walks through the door. Twenty-three years ago, she helped her lover kidnap three baby boys and sold them on the black market—she has carried the guilt with her ever since. Now she wants to know what became of the children, and Father Frank gives Ecks the job of finding out.

Crooks make the best detectives. They know how the guilty think and where the guilty hide. But if Ecks is to pick up this trail and follow where it leads, he will have to fight his old, lethal instincts—and know when justice demands he give in to them.