Geist Esser is the mystery/thriller story of the quest of Matthew Thomas and Luther St. Johns.
As young boys, they find a dying man who gasps out the word "Anima" with his last breath. That was forty years previous.
Now, upon the death of their childhood buddy, they are on the quest to discover why many dying people are once again gasping out the word "Anima" with their last breath.
Their journey includes visits to the library and to a real estate office for information, where they run into someone whom they believe knows something about what is going on. They visit a church that is painted black, with red trim. They think that this place may be central to their quest.
Interspersed amid their travels are the causes of the word "Anima." People's souls are being removed from them. The description of the soul removal operation is this:
"Suddenly, his hearing begins to disappear. When it is completely gone, immediately he hears a slurping sound like a straw sucking the last of a liquid from the bottom of a can. It ends with a hollow echoing sound. His eyes go blank like a dead man's eyes.
"If Matthew and Luther had looked at him at that moment, they would have seen his eyes grow blank and empty as if in a dead man."
The persons collecting the souls are Geist Essers--soul eaters. They look like ordinary people dressed like anyone else. For good reason, they are ordinary people like you and me.
Matthew, who is a theological professor at the college, weaves pertinent theological insight, helping Luther to better understand what is going on and, more importantly, why.
As the boys accumulate clues and evidences, they eventually end up in the climactic scene at the black church. Two hundred Geist Essers assemble to deliver their accumulated cache of souls, which they carry in big stainless-steel bowls. One by one, they dump the contents of the bowls into a large vat at the front of the church.
