William X Kienzle Books in Order

During Lent in Detroit, priests and nuns are being killed one by one, each left with a plain black rosary as a signature. Father Koesler helps the police chase a pattern that leads toward a terrible moral bind.

An unknown killer is leaving decapitated heads on church statues across Detroit. Father Koesler joins the police in a case so grotesque that the whole city begins to feel hunted.

Monsignor Thomas Thompson vanishes, leaving behind a wiped-clean Cadillac, a spent cartridge, and plenty of enemies. Father Koesler narrows the field to six suspects, all with reasons to want the missing churchman gone.

Four conspirators keep trying to assassinate priests teaching in Detroit seminaries, and luck keeps spoiling their plans. Father Koesler first gets involved as a friend, then realizes he may be one of the next targets.

A cardinal is murdered in Detroit, another in the Vatican, and the clues point toward a larger plot against the papacy. Father Koesler and his friends soon find that chasing the truth may put them in the line of fire.

Rising auto executive Frank Hoffman is moving up fast, and somebody wants to stop him for good. Father Koesler follows the case into Detroit boardrooms and back rooms, where career ambition can look a lot like motive.

When hated football star Hank Hunsiger is murdered, suspicion falls on the Bible study group known as the God Squad. Father Koesler enters the world of pro football to sort real faith from hard ambition and old grudges.

Serving temporarily as chaplain in a Detroit hospital, Father Koesler finds a building full of stress, resentment, and small daily chaos. At the center is a formidable nun, and more than one person has reason to want her gone.

Ridley Groendal, a savage Detroit arts critic, has spent years ruining careers and making enemies. When he dies suddenly, Father Koesler steps into a world of performers, grudges, and revenge.

Older prostitutes are being picked up on Sunday afternoons by a man who seems to be dressed like a priest. As the killings grow more grotesque, Father Koesler becomes deeply invested in stopping a murderer using clerical disguise as cover.

A new religious order in downtown Detroit draws crowds, money, and headlines after reports of miraculous healings. Father Koesler has to decide whether the wonders are holy, fraudulent, or hiding something far darker.

Father Koesler agrees to advise a mystery writers' conference and ends up with a real corpse on his hands. When a hated televangelist becomes the focus of suspicion, every speaker looks capable of murder.

A murdered prostitute dressed as a nun is found outside one of Detroit's old Catholic churches. The victim's ties to powerful men, and to an influential nun, turn a street crime into a much more dangerous investigation.

When Father John Keating is killed, the truth reaches Father Koesler through confession, which means he cannot simply hand it to the police. A missing priest case becomes a moral trap, especially with an overeager young priest close by.

A dying businessman asks Father Koesler to intervene in a romance involving Koesler's niece, and the request opens an old wound. Soon he is tracing a thirty-year-old homicide and the family secrets that kept it buried.

After a bitter evening of complaints about the new bishop, one of Detroit's clergy wakes to murder. Father Koesler faces an uncomfortable problem, because the evidence points toward one of his own colleagues.

A papal visit to Detroit should be a triumph for local Catholics, but for police it is a security nightmare. Father Koesler is drawn into a tense hunt for threats coming from both church dissent and street-level violence.

At the wake for Dr. Moses Green, almost everyone has a reason to hate the dead man. Father Koesler has to untangle bitterness, old injuries, and a deeply strange turn of events to learn who finally acted on that hatred.

While Father Koesler is away, Father Zachary Tully steps into a Detroit parish and quickly lands in trouble. A bank opening, family secrets, and an apparent hold-up murder combine in a case that tests both faith and judgment.

As Father Zachary Tully prepares to take on a new role, a clash with Bishop Vincent Delvecchio sends Koesler back into old memories. What begins as church politics opens into a long-buried family tragedy and a possible murder from years ago.

Retired Father Koesler is asked to stay at St. Joseph's Seminary and calm a faculty split that is spilling onto the students. Debates over the future of the church grow hotter until the tension hardens into murder.

Father Rick Casserly and school principal Lil Niedermeir are secret lovers, living in the shadow of church rules. When a former nun and reporter complicates an already fragile circle of loyalties, hidden passions turn deadly.

Father George Wheatley's conversion from the Anglican Church to Roman Catholicism already has his family and parish on edge. When a bomb explodes beneath the altar, Father Koesler must sort through jealousy, prejudice, and ambition to find the killer.

In the 1940s, six Detroit friends seemed headed toward lives in the church. More than fifty years later, a violent death pulls retired Father Bob Koesler back into their shared past, where old guilt and buried wounds still have force.