CHARISMA

The author turns again to the world of Catholicism (Sanctity, 1986) and to the once serene city of New Haven, Connecticut, where Susan Murphy has moved back into the family home after 17 years in a religious order. Her brother Dan, now New Haven's district attorney, and younger brother Andy still live there. Needing some purpose in her new life, Susan tries to be useful at Damien House, a refuge for damaged children run by Father Tom Burne. There, she meets Pat Mallory, police department head of Homicide, presently beset by a double run of killings--several young boys have been found shot to death, gangland style, and a series of women, all ex-nuns, have been ritualistically murdered. Rumors of a well-connected ring of pederasts; a hard look at the city's mean streets; an accusation of child abuse against Father Burne; the political ambitions of Dan Murphy; the deranged thoughts and plans of the serial killer, and much, much more come together in the chilling climax to a lurid story. Occasionally overwrought, sometimes straining credibility, and not for the queasy--but compelling all the way.