William Peter Blatty

The horrible mock-crucifixion murder of a deaf-mute child inaugurates a series of unexplained mutilations and confronts the aging detective investigating the cases with primeval mystery of God and good and evil in the world

A Novel

Legion

C. J. Daley 

This book, unlike the first, was like 80% murder mystery/detective story and only 20% demonic weirdness. 
It still worked for me and even if they weren’t related it would still work as this story. I read that this is technically like the script for the exorcist 3 and that I don’t understand. This doesn’t seem like it would work as a movie (I haven’t seen them). 

Also, the audio from audible was well performed.

Just in time for the 40th anniversary of The Exorcist -- Legion, a classic tale of horror, is back in print! A young boy is found horribly murdered in a mock crucifixion. Is the murderer the elderly woman who witnessed the crime? A neurologist who can no longer bear the pain life inflicts on its victims? A psychiatrist with a macabre sense of humor and a guilty secret? A mysterious mental patient, locked in silent isolation? Lieutenant Kinderman follows a bewildering trail that links all these people, confronting a new enigma at every turn even as more murders surface. Why does each victim suffer the same dreadful mutilations? Why are two of the victims priests? Is there a connection between these crimes and another series of murders that took place twelve years ago—and supposedly ended with the death of the killer? Legion is a novel of breathtaking energy and suspense. But more than this, it is an extraordinary journey into the uncharted depths of the human mind and the most agonizing questions of the human condition. The answers are revealed in a climax so stunning that it could only have been written by the author of The Exorcist—William Peter Blatty.

Richard Binder

"Out of turmoil comes a poem -- this burger."

And thus did Blatty write a better review of this book than I could ever compose. It feels slighter than it did when I was 15, but the sad humor amidst the horror and the determination to search for meaning and be hopeful in spite of it all still resonates with even more power. Also, attention must be paid to any book that inspires me to read Dostoevsky of my own volition.

Legion A Novel