Written with pace, humor and startling literary allusion, Lilian Faschinger's novel is the story of the sensual Magdalena, who, disguised in a nun's habit, kidnaps a priest at gunpoint and drives him in the sidecar of her Puch motorbike to a remote forest clearing where she ties him to a tree. What she is about to confess to him is profoundly shocking: All Magdalena wanted was to find true love. What she found instead was a string of lovers who each made the fatal mistake of disappointing her. From a Latin dance instructor who uses a metronome to help him keep his rhythm in bed to a Ukrainian who plays mental chess games at the gravesite of former grandmaster Alexander Alekhine, Magdalena's men all lost their lives when they no longer satisfied her; perishing by her hand through poison, drowning and incineration. A head-on collision between Church and sex, Magdalena the Sinner interweaves highly charged erotica with modern views on Catholicism, feminism and the tensions between men and women. A nervy motorcyclist kidnaps a Catholic priest, ties him to a tree, and insists that he hear an elaborate confession. Yet another story of a strong-headed lad led astray? Absolutely not, since the motorcyclist in question is a tough but beautiful strawberry blonde named Magdalena with quite a story to tell. The sinner, as the priest calls her in his mind as he narrates the story, has led a chillingly amoral life whose many deeds include seducing a priest in the organ loft, doing away with an inconvenient lover she has met in an Italian abbey, and dressing as a nun while pickpocketing. Occasionally, cliche sneaks in?the priest's attitude toward women, for instance, is annoyingly predictable?but this gripping, sensuous story arrives at a startling climax, and both priest and reader are won over to Magdalena's side. Much discussed on the international scene, this book should attract many readers from both the literary and the thriller the crowd. -?Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal" Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. Faschinger prides herself on being outrageous. What recommends the novel, though, is less its porno-Gothic radical-femme trappings than its dry humor and deadpan characterizations, all ably translated from the German by Edna McCown. -- The New York Times Book Review, Bill Christophersen Through her antiheroine's wacky but seductively witty voice, Austrian writer Faschinger edgily satirizes notions of sin, piety, and sexual politics. -- Entertainment Weekly