Edited by: Ralph McInerny and Martin H. Greenberg

Among the Ten Commandments, "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is self-evidently the most basic and fundamental. Even so, there are those who would break that commandment with impunity, as there are also those who enthusiastically break them all. Sometimes the men and women who seek out and bring these transgressors to justice are people of the cloth, whose explorations of the mysteries of the divine uniquely qualify them to uncover the frailties of their fellow man. From G.K. Chesterton's classic priest-turned-detective Father Brown to Andrew Greeley's modern day Chicago priest Father "Blackie" Ryan, occasionally religious men and women put aside their professional duties to take up an altogether different vocation for a short time -- that of detective. Murder Most Divine contains eighteen superb stories of such sleuthing, resulting in a kind of justice that is almost heavenly in its reach.

Contents:

• The Second Commandment by Charlotte Armstrong
• Holy Living and Holy Dying by Robert Barnard
• Mea Culpa by Jan Burke
• The Wrong Shape by G. K. Chesterton
• Brother Orchid by Richard Connell
• "The Monk’s Tale" by P. C. Doherty
• When Your Breath Freezes by Kathleen Dougherty
• State of Grace by Loren D. Estleman
• Jemima Shore’s First Case by Antonia Fraser
• The Witch’s Tale by Margaret Frazer
• Murder Mysteries by Neil Gaiman
• The Bishop and the Hit Man by Andrew Greeley
• The Sweating Statue by Edward D. Hoch
• The Stripper by H. H. Holmes
• The Base of the Triangle by Ralph McInerny
• Conventual Spirit by Sharan Newman
• Miss Butterfingers by Monica Quill
• In the Confessional by Alice Scanlan Reach