When Brother Francis, Abbot of the Salesian Monastery, travels to Kauai, Hawaii, to present a workshop at a retreat center and speak at a Martin Luther King ecumenical celebration, this frequent-flyer monk discovers there is a fine line between spirituality and magic. In this fifth complete book in a series of monastic mysteries, the magical island of Kauai, Hawaii, provides a fragrant setting for Brother Francis as he continues on his spiritual path while ministering as a clinical psychologist and doctor of natural medicine. During his month-long journey, Brother Francis encounters a gentle Daoist named Tian Wu, whose wife, Effie, a psychic, has just been murdered. There may be more to this event than meets the eye, and it brings out the sleuth in Brother Francis-along with a very special type of magic.
Meanwhile, back in Pennsylvania at the Salesian Monastery, the monastics must deal with the death of one of their own, coupled with a peculiar visit by a pair of CIA agents. Danger, death, and detective work are woven into this fifth volume in the Office of the Dead monastic mystery series, where not everything is at it seems.