Pagan Babies

Father Terry Dunn hears a lot of strange confessions. After all, he's the only priest for miles in the lingering aftermath of the worst massacre Rwanda has ever seen. And Fr. Terry, who has forty-seven bodies in his church that need burying, has just heard one confession too many. After exacting from them a chilling penance, Fr. Terry has to get out of Africa - pronto.' 'Now Terry is coming home to Detroit, where a five-year-old tax-fraud indictment is hanging over him. Is Terry Dunn really a priest? He certainly doesn't act like one. A fugitive felon on two continents, Terry is being pursued by a cigarette-smuggling cohort, who rolled over on Terry to save jail time...yet still demands his share of the money. But Debbie Dewey has other plans for Terry. She's just been sprung from a three-year fall at Sawgrass Correctional for aggravated assault...and is now trying to make it as a stand-up comic. Debbie and Terry hit it off beautifully. They have the same sense of humor and similar goals: Both of them want to raise a whole lot of cash. Terry, for the children of Rwanda; Debbie, to score off a guy who owes her sixty-seven thousand dollars. It's Debbie who keeps prying, until she learns the bizarre truth about Terry; Debbie who sells him on going in together for a much bigger payoff than either could manage alone. That is unless the priest is working a con of his own.Kirkus Reviews, 06/15/2000 'A riotous several hours with guys whose idea of a suitable endearment to their latest bedmate is a heartfelt 'Honey, you could be a pro.'' New York Times Book Review 'PAGAN BABIES has the same fast pace, crackling dialogue and dark ironies we've come to expect from every Elmore Leonard novel for the last 20 years.' -- Bruce DeSilva Washington Post Book World 'On the one hand, [PAGAN BABIES] is a spoof bordering on slapstick of penny-ante crooks, drifters on the margins of conventional society and tinhorn mobsters. On the other hand, it gives us a man who goes off to a foreign land to do one thing and ends up doing quite another, in the process becoming more--and better--than he probably ever imagined he could be.' -- Joanthan Yardley San Francisco Chronicle Book Review 'Even when Leonard is just spinning his wheels a bit--and PAGAN BABIES feels that way at times--he still manages to do it with more style and wit than most crime writers ever muster. A class act all the way.' -- David Lazarus