"The Moondead is the first in a series of mystery novels titled The Sacristan Mysteries. When two macabre slayings turn a remote desert town upside down, Major Crimes lead night detective, Lt. John Padric, is looking for answers. Calling the victims, the moondead, local media is all over the story; under a full moon, someone is targeting priests and nuns. But a chance encounter brings an assist in the person of archaeologist-turned-nun, Sister Magdalen. Her graduate studies in burial sites and ritual once took her to Egypt but now she’s exchanged the Sahara for the Sonoran and an enigmatic bishop with secrets to hide has appointed her sacristan of his Cathedral. She is tasked with the care of holy vessels and vestments, altar linens and liturgies, but a gift of discernment, a seventh sense, she has had from her youth, is telling her things are not what they seem. But this is the nun’s cup of tea and it’s time...good Sister Magdalen is restless and has been too long without a mystery to solve. The Cathedral’s sacristan could do with some convent noir. . . Belfast-born, John Padric is more than a super cop. He is an academic at heart, well read and articulate. The man is known to quote Shakespeare and F. Scott Fitzgerald at crime scenes and correct the grammar of suspects he interrogates in the interview room; the collection of Batman comic books he keeps in his desk is legend. He is confident often brazen, even obnoxious and gets the job done by the book...well, most of the time. The lieutenant however is playing it fast and loose in his personal life. He is addicted to risk, his drug of choice, women who aren’t his wife...he’s due for some comeuppance. . If there is one constant in Padric’s life, it’s his partner of eighteen years, Detective Alejandro Martinez, the other half of the duo on which the First Precinct’s Commander Ramirez and Captain O’Manion rely. The plight of the moondead and unusual religious overtones of the slayings perplex and consume the two but they’ll slowly find answers with the help of the nun who often observes: “We’re all looking for a little redemption.” . But the narrative and its cast of characters comprise more than a mystery to solve and there’s much to unwrap in the telling. Over a bottle of ale, Padric will wax eloquent that the city he’s trying to protect is ”Wild West Medieval”; the man has a way with words. . . L. A. Mascone invites us to make a detour off the highway of life down a dark, less travelled road into the fictitious city of L’Arroyo to come face-to-face with an old morality tale reinvented in the Arizona Sonoran. 491 pages
