The Black Mass of Brother Springer

Summary

"No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford" (Elmore Leonard) 

The Black Mass of Brother Springer tells the story of Sam Springer, a drifter novelist who meets Jack Dover, the retiring Abbot of the Church of God's Flock. Dover's final official act is to ordain Springer and send him off to serve as pastor of an all-Black church in Jacksonville, Florida. Springer soon becomes entangled in the city's growing civil rights movement...and with the church deacon's earthy young wife, Merita. 

The Washington Post calls this darkly humorous novel by Charles Willeford, one of the great crime writers of the 20th century, "his masterpiece".