Kienzle, William X, 1928–2001

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Kienzle, William X, 1928–2001

(Mark Boyle, William Xavier Kienzle)

PERSONAL: Born September 11, 1928, in Detroit, MI; died of a heart attack, December 28, 2001, in West Bloomfield, MI; son of Alphonzo and Mary Louise (Boyle) Kienzle; married Javan Herman Andrews (an editor and researcher), November 29, 1974. Education: Sacred Heart Seminary College, Detroit, B.A., 1950; also attended St. John's Seminary, 1950–54, and University of Detroit, 1968. Politics: Independent. Religion: Roman Catholic.

CAREER: Ordained Roman Catholic priest, 1954; Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit, Detroit, MI, archdiocesan priest in five parishes, 1954–74; Michigan Catholic, editor-in-chief, 1962–74; MPLS Magazine, Minneapolis, MN, editor-in-chief, 1974–77; Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, associate director of Center for Contemplative Studies, 1977–78; University of Dallas, Irving, TX, director of Center for Contemplative Studies, 1978–79; writer, 1979–2001.

MEMBER: International Association of Crime Writers, Authors Guild, Authors League of America.

AWARDS, HONORS: Michigan Knights of Columbus journalism award, 1963, for general excellence; honorable mention from Catholic Press Association, 1974, for editorial writing.

WRITINGS:

MYSTERY NOVELS

The Rosary Murders, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 1979.

Death Wears a Red Hat, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 1980.

Mind over Murder, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 1981.

Assault with Intent, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 1982.

Shadow of Death, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 1983.

Kill and Tell, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 1984.

Sudden Death, Andrews, McMeel & Parker (Kansas City, MO), 1985.

Deathbed, Andrews, McMeel & Parker (Kansas City, MO), 1986.

Deadline for a Critic, Andrews, McMeel & Parker (Kansas City, MO), 1987.

Marked for Murder, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 1988.

Eminence, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 1989.

Masquerade, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 1990.

Chameleon, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 1991.

Body Count, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 1992.

Dead Wrong, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 1993.

Bishop as Pawn, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 1994.

Call No Man Father, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 1995.

Requiem for Moses, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 1996.

The Man Who Loved God, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 1997.

The Greatest Evil, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 1998.

No Greater Love, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 1999.

Till Death, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 2000.

The Sacrifice, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 2001.

The Gathering, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 2002.

Author of Campaign Capers (play; produced in Detroit, MI), 1960. Contributor, under pseudonym Mark Boyle, to MPLS Magazine. Contributor to Homicide Host Presents, Write Way, 1996.

ADAPTATIONS: The Rosary Murders was adapted as a motion picture starring Donald Sutherland, Take One Productions, 1987.

SIDELIGHTS: After leaving the priesthood in 1974, William X. Kienzle "exchanged his pulpit for a typewriter," as Bill Dunn explained it in Publishers Weekly, and began writing the tales that made him a best-selling mystery author. The twenty years Kienzle spent in the priesthood provided the raw material for his popular series involving Father Robert Koesler, an amateur sleuth and sharply defined priest who resembles his creator in several ways. "The fictitious Father Koesler divides his time between his pastoral duties within the Detroit archdiocese and his journalistic duties as an editor of the area's Catholic newspaper, just as Kienzle spent his time during the 1960's," Detroit News Magazine writer Andrea Wojack noted.

Despite these similarities, Wojack did not envision Koesler as Kienzle in disguise. Rather, she saw him as a product of both Kienzle's background, in "the tradition of clerical detectives in fiction, like G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown and Harry Kemelman's Rabbi Small." Andrew M. Greeley similarly observed in the Los Angeles Times Book Review: "Kienzle is the Harry Kemelman of Catholicism, and his priest detective, Robert Koesler … is the Detroit response to Rabbi Small." The critic added: "I am not suggesting that Kienzle is consciously imitating Kemelman—though there would be nothing wrong with such imitation. Rather I am arguing that religio-ethnic subcultures are fertile seedbeds for mystery stories. Kienzle's sensitivity to the pathos and foolishness, shallow fads and rigid ideologies, mindless nonsense and deep faith of the contemporary Catholic scene compares favorably with Kemelman's vivid description of suburban Jewish life."

A native of Detroit, Kienzle also used the city and its Catholic parishes as a backdrop for his fiction, reportedly drawing many of his characters from people he knew. "Kienzle's portrayals of various priests obviously are an insider's (or ex-insider's) work," a Detroit News contributor commented. "He seems accurate, yet relaxed, in his depictions of the clergy, and his genuine affection for many of them far outruns any tendency toward satiric thrust." In addition, Father Koesler's solutions rely on his knowledge of the Church and its workings; in Eminence, for example, "Koesler's command of ecclesiastical detail is full and fascinating," Los Angeles Times Book Review critic Charles Champlin stated, and "the uses of Latin and points of Canon law are significant clues."

Despite Kienzle's assertion that his novels were, as Dunn reported, "first of all thrillers," many critics have found a deeper meaning in his work. In his review of Mind over Murder, for example, Detroit Free Press contributor Neal Shine observed: "There has always been the sense that there's as much message as mystery in Kienzle's books. Kienzle is a former Detroit priest whose feelings about some of the ways in which the Catholic Church deports itself can hardly be called ambivalent. In Mind over Murder he goes to the heart of the matter for a lot of Catholics—marriage and the Church. The people with the clearest motives for rubbing out the monsignor are those who have run up against his incredibly inflexible rulings on marriage." Chicago Tribune writer Peter Gorner likewise remarked that in Deadline for a Critic, "Kienzle addresses serious modern issues"; nevertheless, the author also "stops to digress and tell us his wonderful stories." The critic concluded that "Kienzle's books are more small morality plays than classic mysteries. He always is welcomed to my shelves."

Although Kienzle included philosophical inquiries and religious asides in his books, many critics contended that his primary strength lied in the development of the mystery. In Kill and Tell, for example, "we're back to basics with a fascinating cast of three-dimensional characters who act like people caught up in a baffling case, a protagonist in Father Koesler who is both wry and intelligent, and an honest-to-badness murder at a tension-filled cocktail party that is truly puzzling," Don G. Campbell recounted in the Los Angeles Times Book Review. Best Sellers contributor Tony Bednarczyk likewise asserted that in The Rosary Murders, which he called a "well paced, tightly written novel," the author "creates well defined characters that inhabit his story rather than decorate it." "The Rosary Murders quickly established Father Koesler as among the most likable and authentic of all recent sleuths and gave his wise and compassionate creator a mid-life career and a new pulpit," Gorner concluded. "Since then, few mystery series have been more cozy and persuasive."

Other installments in the series include finding Father Koesler and his cohorts in the press and the police department in the midst of a plot involving a Mafia hitman who has confessed to murdering a priest in Body Count; investigating a thirty-year-old murder in Dead Wrong; and working to find the killers of several priests in advance of a visit by the pope in Call No Man Father. As always, Kienzle peppered his plot with numerous anecdotes from his own experience as a priest and set the stories in Detroit. "Kienzle's novels are longer and more leisurely than most mysteries, more discursive, and with shorter episodic scenes than in tightly plotted action stories of confrontation and violence," noted Jane Gottschalk in Crime and Mystery Writers. "But in the bizarre plots," the critic added, "the sharp delineation of even the most minor characters (with more warts than beauty spots), and the sophisticated urbanity of the telling make them first-rate literate reading."

Reviewing Kienzle's twentieth entry in the "Father Koesler" series, The Greatest Evil, Melissa Hudak remarked in Library Journal: "Although billed as a mystery, Kienzle's latest offering is more a historical view of the Catholic Church's changing attitudes." About to retire as pastor of St. Joseph's Parish in Detroit, Father Koesler is enthusiastic about the man he has picked to replace him, Father Zachary Tully. However, Tully has doubts about taking the position because he would be under the authority of Auxiliary Bishop Vincent Delvecchio, a man known for his ultraconservative and authoritarian views. In the course of explaining to Tully the bishop's progression from an idealistic young seminarian to the rigid man he has become, Koesler stumbles upon a mystery. He begins to believe that the changes in Delvecchio may relate to his involvement in the death of a family member, a death that was supposedly from natural causes, but which Koesler now suspects could have been murder. Hudak recommended The Greatest Evil for its "fascinating insight" into the Catholic Church, but added that some Kienzle fans might be disappointed because the mystery element of the novel becomes secondary and discussion predominates over action.

A retired Father Koesler, now in his seventies, appears in No Greater Love. Although he has stepped down as pastor, Koesler is still helping out at St. Joseph's, where changing social values are fostering dissatisfaction and turmoil. Two women members of the congregation are lobbying to become priests. Another overzealous member wants his son to become a priest, despite the son's misgivings, and attempts to enlist Koesler's aid to indoctrinate the boy. Other issues that surface in the course of the narrative include "folk" masses, an aging priesthood, and the decrease in students graduating from the nearby seminary. The various conflicts eventually lead to a murder Koesler must unravel. A Publishers Weekly critic, praising Kienzle's "well-conceived characters," went on to observe: "The plot … plays itself out neither as a whodunit or a whydunit, but as a tragedy and morality play that develops slowly and inevitably to a violent climax."

Kienzle's first "Father Koesler" outing of the new millennium, Till Death, was viewed by a writer for Publishers Weekly as a marked departure from the mystery genre. The plot of the novel centers around the St. Ursula Survivor's Club, which Koesler established years earlier to help heal the psychological wounds of both priests and nuns who had served under the tyrannical Father Angelico. Two members of the club, Father Rick Casserly and Lillian Neidermier, the latter a lay principal of a Catholic school, are carrying on a secret love affair. Another member of the club, Dora Ricardo, a nun who has become a reporter, also develops a romantic interest in Father Casserly. The Publishers Weekly writer remarked that "Kienzle's characters usually serve didactic purposes, and here they demonstrate changes in love and marriage and the clergy. Unfortunately, these figures lack the substance to lift the story to tragedy."

In The Sacrifice, an Episcopal priest, Father George Wheatley, has decided he wants to convert to Catholicism. His proposed conversion is opposed by his son Ron, also an Episcopal priest, his daughter, Alice, and assorted members of the Catholic Church. When an explosion at the altar kills a priest, Wheatley and Father Koesler must identify and track down the murderer. Thematically, the novel explores the differences between Episcopalians, Anglicans, and Roman Catholics, and once again deals with the controversy of whether or not priests should be allowed to marry. Rex E. Klett of Library Journal labeled The Sacrifice "a potboiler" and criticized it for "a tedious exposition, argumentative and/or didactic digressions, and cheap narrative tricks." However, a critic for Publishers Weekly had a very different reaction, stating that while the "Father Koesler" series showed signs of age, The Sacrifice "is a refreshingly strong entry." The final volume in the series, The Gathering, was published in 2002, only months after its author's death.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series, Volume 1, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1984.

Contemporary Literary Criticism, Volume 25, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1983.

St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1996.

PERIODICALS

Best Sellers, July, 1979.

Booklist, April 15, 1992, p. 1506; May 1, 1995, p. 1555; April 15, 1998, Margaret Flanagan, review of The Greatest Evil, p. 1386.

Chicago Tribune, May 29, 1985; April 8, 1987; May 3, 1989.

Chicago Tribune Book World, July 11, 1982.

Detroit Free Press, February 22, 1980; April 26, 1981.

Detroit News, July 15, 1979; April 5, 1981.

Detroit News Magazine, March 16, 1980.

Library Journal, May 1, 1987; April 1, 1989; June 1, 1998, Melissa Hudak, review of The Greatest Evil, p. 94; April 1, 2001, Rex E. Klett, review of The Sacrifice, p. 137.

Los Angeles Times, April 24, 1981; May 7, 1987.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, June 22, 1980; May 23, 1982; August 5, 1984; May 7, 1987; April 9, 1989; April 11, 1993, p. 8.

Michigan Magazine, August 11, 1985.

National Catholic Reporter, July 15, 1988; May 26, 1995, p. 25.

New York Times Book Review, June 15, 1980; June 21, 1981; May 23, 1982; May 20, 1990.

Publishers Weekly, April 18, 1980; March 11, 1988; February 3, 1989; March 9, 1990; March 15, 1991; March 2, 1992, p. 52; March 8, 1993, p. 70; March 21, 1994; March 6, 1995, p. 63; March 18, 1996, p. 61; March 22, 1999, review of No Greater Love, p. 73; March 13, 2000, review of Till Death, p. 66; February 12, 2001, review of The Sacrifice, p. 187; April 1, 2002, review of The Gathering, p. 56.

Rapport, Volume 16, number 6, 1992, p. 21.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), November 7, 1993, p. 10.