When the partially decomposed body of a young woman is discovered during an annual university celebration, an investigation is launched that will take renowned Atlanta homicide detective, John Landreith, from the infamous red-light district of Georgia's capital into the consecrated sanctuary of an inner-city mega-church. Powerful forces are at work to conceal the perpetrator's identity. Long-standing reputations and a prestigious appointment to serve in the United States Senate are at stake. Landreith and his partner, Finn Rollins, must move faster than the quickly unfolding plot working against them. In a daring attempt to uncover the killer's identity, the detectives devise an ingenious plan as uncertain as it is daring. It all comes to a climactic finish on a Sunday morning that the congregants, and Atlanta at large, will never forget.

Jacob Lassiter was born and raised in the deep South during the turbulent segregation and intense struggle for civil rights era of the 1960's. During his lifetime, he has the unique opportunity to witness some of the most socially volatile and politically unstable situations on five continents. From post-communistic Russia and Ukraine to deep in the Amazon basin, the leprosy pandemic in Nepal, and the AIDS ravaged nations of East Africa, he has witnessed human suffering, poverty, and social injustice on a scale unimaginable to most. 'By the Blood of the Crescent Moon' is his debut novel and the first in the Detective John Landreith series.