Faithful Unto Death and Safe From Harm: Sugar Land Mysteries

It's been awhile since I blogged regularly, but I've been feeling  nudged to begin again and what better way to do that then to share a couple of favorites from my recent reading with my Gentle Readers.

Faithful Unto Death and Safe From Harm are two new mysteries featuring a minister sleuth set in my own town of Sugar Land, Texas. "Everything is perfect in Sugar Land, except it's not" is the theme of this new series.

Walker "Bear" Wells is the head pastor of the mega-size Church of Christ in this upscale suburban master-planned community. A former University of Texas football player, he lives with his wife Annie Laurie, his rebellious younger daughter Jo, and his Newfoundland dog  and texts regularly to his college age  daughter Merrie away at Texas Tech. Rounding out the continuing cast of characters is the church secretary Rebecca and her two badly behaved porcine pugs, and local Detective James Wanderley who Bear clashes with frequently.

Stephanie Jaye Evans is the daughter of a Church of Christ minister and a long-time resident of Sugar Land. In fact, she lived down the street from one of my best friends. She wrote the first book, Faithful Unto Death, as the capstone project for her masters degree in liberal studies at Rice University and it won the 2010 William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic Grant for Unpublished Writers. No, I never heard of that award before either, but I'm not surprised because both of these mysteries establish that Evans has serious literary chops as well as being a master story-teller.

My RevGals who enjoy mysteries featuring clergy amateur sleuths will really love these two books. Bear, his faith, his family, his neighbors and his church are portrayed realistically and not sentimentally. Trust a PK (preacher's kid) to understand the humanity beneath the collar. Texans, Houstonians and Sugar Landers will particularly enjoy the familiar places, people and attitudes they will find in the books.

There is a clear progression and development of characters from Faithful Unto Death to Safe From Harm that I expect to see continue with the next book. The mysteries have unexpected twists and turns and the conclusions have some ambiguity--just like real life.

I can't wait for the third book in this series!

The Translation of the Bones by Francesca Kay

The second week of January is probably too early to pick the best literary novel of the year, but The Translation of the Bones by Francesca Kay will certainly find a spot high on my personal list by the end of 2012.

This superbly crafted tale of how the child-like faith of the mentally disturbed church volunteer Mary Margaret O'Reilly leads to unspeakable tragedy is compelling and profound.

Without spoiling the story, I can only reveal that the when the devout Mary Margaret has an accident while cleaning the crucifix in the chapel of the Sacred Heart church in South London, she believes that she has re-opened the wounds of Christ and that belief drives her to seek redemption which ends in the tragedy. Since the accident and her response to it happened with visitors in the chapel, a sensation ensues which drags the priest struggling with his own faith into the situation.

Although the length of a novel, The Translation of the Bones is so expertly and sparely written that it reads more like a short story. The plot has no loose ends and all of the characters--Mary Margaret, Father Diamond, Mary Margaret's morbidly obese mother Fidelma, and fellow parishioners Stella Morrison and Alice Armitage--are complex and believable.

Francesca Kay is a British author who was won the 2009 Orange Prize for New Writers  for her first novel, An Equal Stillness (not yet published in the US).  This second work is an inspiring story of faith, loneliness and family relationships which prompts the reader to reflect on these themes after finishing the book.

The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party by Alexander McCall Smith

I'm reviewing the enhanced Kindle edition of this latest story in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series so I can post about the video interview that is included.

The Big Tent Wedding Party is an entertaining and delightful addition to the ongoing series by Alexander McCall Smith.

At the end of the Kindle addition are a series of brief--two minutes or less-video clips from an interview with the author on a variety of subjects. Each clip is labeled with its topic so you can jump around and view the ones you like the best. I read my Kindle books on an IPad most of the time so I watched it in color.

McCall Smith discusses future plans for development of the characters in the series, reminisces about growing up in Africa, describes Mma Romotswe's little white van and Grace's shoes as ongoing characters in the stories, and invites you to join him in a cuppa tea. 

It's a fun little addition to the Kindle version. I expect to see more use of digital technology like videos, music and links to outside references becoming incorporated in e-books as publishers embrace this new technology.

Oh, and you wondered about the story in The Big Tent Wedding Party? Could it be that wedding bells will ring at last for Grace and Phuti Radhiphuti? Can Precious derail the campaign of that minx Violet Sepotho for Parliament? And was that really the little white van or its ghost that Precious saw on the road?

I'm not going to play the spoiler, but if you're a fan you will enjoy this one, too!