Who's the target?

When Detective Lieutenant Rick Peller discovers a Bible verse spray painted on a Catholic church, he fears it's a death threat. But aimed at who? The reticent pastor seeking to cover it up? The retired priest who everyone insists is the most harmless man in the world? The nervous housekeeper with a troubled past? As Peller and his team investigate, the incidents multiply, drawing a second church into a tangled web of deceit obscured by the seal of the confessional.

Soon, seemingly unrelated crimes tie in, and the mystery deepens. What could a bored teenager shooting off a gun in the woods, an angry grandmother ramming badly-parked vehicles, and an unsolved homicide have to do with the messages? But the graffiti isn't what it seems, and behind everything lurks a villain who has no qualms about murdering priests. Or meddling detectives.

The Wages of Sin is the fifth novel in Dale E. Lehman's Howard County Mystery series.