In order to bolster the lagging spirits of Orange County Catholics stunned by the largest legal judgment in history against the church, Pope John Paul II s last official act is the installation of a local cardinal. The diocesan headquarters at Marywood is put on the auction block, while parish churches and schools around the county are being auctioned to developers. Alice Hudson, the matriarch of an influential Orange County family, sits in a place of honor at Our Lady of the Oranges Cathedral. She savors the crowning moment of her life s ambition as the pope places the scarlet biretta on her son Michael s bowed head but her joy is short-lived. Alice s daughter, Sara, is head of the district attorney s sexual assault unit and is bringing charges against Michael and his aides. They had knowledge of the criminal conduct of a sexually predatory priest and allegedly failed to report him. Author Kevin E. Gallagher has created an eerily accurate account of the Catholic Church s struggle to confront and root out the evil wielded by the sexually predatory priests infecting their ranks. The Letter Killeth is a timely, objective, and most entertaining work that puts a fictional face on the reality of this crisis in the church. Gallagher has taken a very serious subject, coated it with lively writing and humor, and made it an enjoyable, thought provoking, and entertaining experience." -- JACK MILES, PULITZER PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR "Timely This very well written book is right out of the headlines" -- FORMER EDITOR, L.A. TIMES BOOK REVIEW A grim tale of sex crimes, family betrayal and the Church. In his third novel, (after Divine Lunacy, 2000, and The Fourth Trimester, 1993), criminal trial attorney and former Marine captain Gallagher heads for the courtroom to give fictional treatment to the recent sex scandals that rocked the Catholic Church. The driving narrative holds the reader hostage until the end. Da Vinci Code devotees as well as those interested in the machinations of the Catholic clergy will devour this macabre account of what happens when ambition collides with the brutal reality of the sexual abuse of children. -Kirkus Discoveries