The Shadow Priest

In the remote Four Corners region of Colorado, Special Agent Nathaniel Arkin, a disgraced former intelligence officer, investigates the killing of a bigoted, vitriolic preacher who was about to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. In processing the murder scene, Arkin thinks he recognizes the modus operandi of a shadowy group he pursued and was on the verge of exposing years earlier, just before his abrupt fall from grace and exile from Washington, D.C. Rumored to be run by a self-righteous, lapsed Jesuit priest, it was a group Arkin long suspected of orchestrating an international assassination campaign targeting charismatic, fledgling fanatics-future Hitlers and bin Ladens-just as they emerged from obscurity, before they were capable of instigating mass murder. Reluctant, but aching for redemption, Arkin resumes the chase, setting in motion a chain of events that could lead to his salvation-or his doom. Along the way, he confronts a question that has troubled him for many years: What creates murderous fundamentalists and fanatics like Hitler and bin Laden in the first place?