At the request of a widow, Father Koesler agrees on a service for a dead Jew in his church in Detroit. When halfway through the service the man comes alive and news of it reaches the bishop, the priest is called on the carpet for officiating for a Jew.

A prositute dressed as a nun is found murdered outside an old, prestigious church. Her clientele includes some of the city's most powerful figures and Father Koesler is asked to aid in the investigation.

Father Koesler, having retired from his parish, is asked to move to St. Joseph's Seminary to help his old friend Patrick McNiff smooth out the factionalism within the faculty, and while he learns much about the problems dividing the seminary as well as his old home parish, he is shocked when the conflicts escalate into murder.

A mystery writers' conference gets a dose of real-life crime when the featured speaker, the wildly unpopular Reverend Klaus Krieg, is killed, and Father Koesler must enlist the aid of Alonzo "Zoo" Tully to catch a killer.

Sixty-year-old Father Rick Casserly, the much loved pastor at St. William of Thierry church, and Lillian "Lil" Niedermier, the principal at nearby St. Enda's elementary school, share a common bond. They are secret lovers, driven into the closet by the Catholic Church's position on the marriage of its clergy. When troubled former nun, now reporter, Dora Riccardo sets her cap for Rick, the already complex state of affairs unfolds into a spiraling scenario...