Our Lady of Perpetual Death by Lambeth

About the book

Roger Donnelly and Jesse Montoya are best friends. It's 1960's Southern California suburbia, and they're growing up Catholic as students at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows grammar school.

Roger's family is the quintessential '60s tract house tribe--mom, dad, Roger and his sister. They have the standard dreams and standard troubles of any suburbia family. But things change for Roger when his pal Jesse begins to claim he's having conversations with Jesus and the Virgin Mary. At first, Roger is bemused and indifferent, but as Jesse gets deeper into his visions and claimed miracles, he drags a disbelieving and unwilling Roger along.

As time passes and things get stranger, Roger's life unravels: he's tormented by a psychotic nun; his sister becomes a religious fanatic; his dad dies in a freak accident; and Roger himself is changed forever by the actions of a drunken neighbor. In high school, scarred and crippled, Roger loses his faith. He can't buy into Jesse's religious ramblings anymore--but still he's loyal to Jesse because you always stick with your best friend. Roger falls in love, and for a time things look up--until he's betrayed and unceremoniously dumped.

Jesse's life also takes strange twists. His huge extended family doesn't buy into his miracle stories, but they love him anyway. His claimed conversations with the Virgin Mary and Jesus and supposed ability to work cures strains his friendship with Roger. He grows into a big, strong kid, and in high school is a football stud--but things go bad for Jesse, too, when an apparently pissed-off God throws trouble his way.

Jesse decides that he and Roger need to go to Lourdes to find their cures, but it's not to be. Roger is bitter and angry, but Jesse is relentlessly upbeat and faithful to the end. He knows his good buddies Jesus and the Virgin will get back in touch with him.

Ultimately, when Roger and Jesse face evil, they'll find that the real miracles aren't always so plain to see. The story is told through Roger's skeptical eyes, and spans the era from the early '60s until the '90s. We follow Roger's search for miracles with Jesse, and live his loves, fears, disappointments and ultimate redemption.

A description of Killer

Jonathan Avelini has hit rock bottom. He's been fired from every police job he's ever held, and now he's crash-landed at the campus police department of a frozen, backwater Moo U. To add insult to injury he's just turned forty, and his second wife has unceremoniously dumped him for a young hardbody. The former LAPD detective, hotshot ladies' man, and bodysurfing stud has torpedoed his career and is sliding into loser's oblivion.

Michael Massey has always been a doormat. And now, as a college librarian, he's reminded every day of his invisible wimpdom. To the endless parade of vibrant, happily ignorant students who pass by his desk, Michael Massey doesn't exist. But everything changes for Massey when he's forced to kill an armed intruder to protect his daughter. He discovers that just under the surface, below his meek exterior, is an appetite -- an unspeakable appetite. He resists at first, because entertaining the notion is so disturbing, so wrong. But soon the memories of killing become pleasant fantasies, and Michael Massey can no longer deny the unthinkable: he enjoyed killing, and he wants to do it again.

As Massey slowly spirals into madness, he merges with his alter ego, Killer, and the sleepy university town becomes his slaughterhouse. Jonathan Avelini awakens from his mid-life torpor, his dead-end job suddenly becomes a whole lot more interesting, and with the help of his retired LAPD partner, Avelini stares down insanity and his own capacity to kill. KILLER alternates between Avelini and Massey's point-of-view, and we travel with them along their separate paths: Massey's descent into evil, and Avelini's dogged pursuit. In the end, the line between killer and cop, madness and sanity, is erased.