CRIMINAL INTENT

Tulsa attorney Ben Kincaid (Murder One, 2001, etc.) is still charging hard against a criminal-justice system that keeps getting it wrong. The unhappy defendant in Ben’s 11th case is Father Daniel Beale, an Episcopalian priest with an unfortunate talent for disenchanting his flock. Those who view him darkly include virtually all the parishioners in the inner circle of St. Benedict’s. So when vestrywomen Helen Conrad, Kate McGuire, and Susan Marino get knocked off faster than you can say “Vengeance is mine,” the cops have no problem looking past priestly robes—especially since Father Beale is well-known for his hair-trigger temper, and since dozens of potential witnesses heard him shout at and threaten the victims, seriatim, moments before each met her fate. But Father Beale and Ben go way back together, to a time when Ben was a boy needing a friend and found one he never forgot. Father Beale can be wrong-headed, Ben knows, tactless in the extreme, unsettlingly liberal concerning church doctrine, and downright disdainful of his own best interests, but a murderer? Never—even if his are the only fingerprints on what the prosecution claims is a murder weapon. Clearly some conniving perp hates Father Beale enough to frame him. Who in heaven’s name can that be? “You won’t believe it,” somebody tells Ben in response to his sleuthing. Well, he does, but you might not.

Good courtroom scenes can’t dispel a familiar feeling: been there, read that.