A SKILLFUL BLEND OF CHARACTER, PHILOSOPHY AND

NARRATIVE. . .Formidable personalities embroil themselves in ruthless power struggles that would make a corporate raider blush.

--The Washington Post Book World

It is 1965, and Charles Ashworth has attained the plum position of bishop of Starbridge, an honor that keeps him in a heady whirl of activity that would exhaust the most seasoned corporate executive. With the invaluable support of his minions and his attractive, unsinkable wife, Ashworth stands against the amorality and decadence of the age--"Anti-Sex Ashworth." He slays his opponents by being a tough, efficient, confident churchman, the torments of his past long since dead and buried.

And then the unexpected, the unthinkable, strikes.

Suddenly Ashworth finds himself staring into the chasm of all the lies hes been telling himself for years: about his marriage, his children, even his views on the Church. And as he suspects his old nemesis and dean, Neville Aysgarth, of drinking too much, of financial chicanery, of--God forbid--having an affair, Ashworth discovers to his horror that he is tempted to commit the very acts that he has so publicly

denounced. . . .

"ENTHRALLING. . .Rich, dense, almost indecently entertaining."

--San Jose Mercury News

"POWERFUL. . .MIRACULOUS."

--Booklist (starred review)

SELECTED BY THE BOOK-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB