Holy Week, 1861. Ignacio de la Cruz is the parish priest of a small town in the Arizona territory. He is also an ex-bounty hunter who made his living exploiting the crimes of others while committing countless brutalities of his own. And though he has tried to atone for his past and exorcise his demons, neither seem willing to leave him in peace. Tempted yet resolute, he offers himself continually to his God. But, when his friends and neighbors are terrorized by a series of ghastly murders, Ignacio is left with one choice: either suffer for the sins of others or resurrect the sinner within and destroy the one responsible. is a philosophical/psychological thriller reminiscent of Umberto Eco's but set near the time and place of Cormac McCarthy's . "Somehow blending Sherlock Holmes and Cormac McCarthy, American faith, and Catholic religion, the revolting and the sublime, the entirely desolate and the eternally hopeful, this novel is impossible to categorize or forget. It is a paradox, an impossibility-a miracle." - , co-editor of "In this work, Madrox accomplishes one of the most difficult tasks facing authors: his characters stand out off the page. If a man like the protagonist Ignacio has never lived, certainly one ought to have. He breathes life into the challenge of faith by revealing the doubt at its very core. The world he occupies is strange, but no stranger than our own. And like us, he is never at home in it." - , author of