Everything is going Gabe Russell's way. He's successful in his new job, he's a martial arts expert, his novel's about to be published, and he's got a crush on a woman at work that appears to be reciprocated. There's just one problem: Gabe is a priest. And he's coming undone. The Empty Confessional is a story of righteous vengeance-and its costs. Torn between his attraction to his former teacher and his calling, Gabe finds release for his religious and sexual frustration through violent penance-retribution against the abusers and rapists he discovers through the confessional and the pedophilic priests within his own ranks. Investigating these assaults is Carla Jessup, a cynical detective with her own issues with the law. The result is a complicated relationship, in which priest and detective are alternately sources, partners and foes. The Empty Confessional is a complicated tangle of relationships, reckoning, and the struggle between what's legal and what's right.