ABSOLUTION

KANE AND LUCY FACE ONE OF THEIR TOUGHEST ASSIGNMENTS YET when they volunteer to investigate the murder of Dermot O’Leary, a former Catholic priest who had turned his back on religion and returned to the States after working for the Church in Asia. Was O’Leary’s death connected to the theft of three Renaissance paintings stolen from his home? Had he incited someone’s hatred by his controversial views on the Church? Had he discovered evidence of abuse by a priest in the local diocese and been murdered to keep him quiet? Or was his murder somehow linked to the rape and murder of a young girl in Vietnam years before? As they investigate, Kane and Lucy find themselves questioning whether the deceased was really the good and kindly man that everyone believed him to be. The only clue to the killer’s identity may be a single word written in a notebook by O’Leary shortly before he was battered to death — but what does it mean?