Speaker to heaven

Calavairnonce Southern Californiais an island of civilization in Noel's postholocaust world. Ruled by a rich, secretive and powerful monastic order resembling the Catholic Church, the society has substituted its newly abundant psychic powers for lost scientific abilities. Therein lies a crucial conflict, for the church seeks to control all such powers while the university wants to study them properly, and a third group, the renegade kindlewitches, uses them for evil purposes. The bizarre death of the church's leader, Speaker to Heaven, and other disturbances of a magical nature bring in detective Wolf, who must sort out the prime suspects among the most powerful secular and religious figures in their small world.