Killing for Christ - Softcover

Praise for the original 1968 edition:

"A Killing for Christ is a fast-paced, topical thriller...Hamill’s prose is stylishly punchy...I would guess that Hamill admires Hemingway, Jimmy Breslin, and Mickey Spillane--not always in that order."
--New York Times

"The Helen Macinnes touch...the Hitchcock air."
--Philadelphia Inquirer

"The style and substance of this first novel owes much to hardboiled, gutsy, private-eye fiction and to a general submersion into obscenity and violence."
--Kirkus Reviews

A secret agent out of John le Carré...a spoiled priest-hero out of Graham Greene...a high-voltage novel of suspense that is Pete Hamill’s own.

The man in priest's garb gets out of the elevator at the top floor, leaving the gate ajar. He removes the rifle from under his habit and opens the breech. It's loaded. He closes it and steps to the edge of the roof. St. Peter's Square is spread out before him like a great, colorful lake. There are more people than he has ever seen before. There are priests and monsignors all in royal purple, sitting on all sides of an altar.

Now the target arrives. The man on top of the building sights down the rifle at the small figure below. His finger is ready on the trigger, ready to gun down His Holiness, the Vicar of Christ...