Prayer

Narrator Mark Zeisler's understated approach tamps down some of the over-the-top elements of this mystery. FBI Agent Gil Martins is a mess. He's lost his faith and his marriage. His obsessive-compulsive disorder is getting worse. And prominent atheists keep dying in ways that look like accidents--but aren't. When Martin's investigation takes him to a megachurch and a confrontation with its pastor, frightening things start happening. In the end, though, in spite of his steady, engaging performance, Zeisler can't shorten passages that seem to go on and on. The story is less a thriller than a badly disguised religious treatise. G.S.D. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

Starred review from March 24, 2014
Edgar-finalist Kerr takes a break from his Bernie Gunther PI series (Prague Fatale, etc.) with this provocative standalone set mainly in present-day Texas. Houston FBI agent Gil Martins usually handles domestic terrorism, but he can’t resist pursuing a case involving the deaths of several prominent atheists around the country in circumstances that seem to rule out foul play, but that also don’t accord with accident or suicide. Martins, who has lost his Catholic faith, faces an uphill battle, persuading his bosses to authorize his probe, but once he’s done so, he finds himself drawn into a complex mystery with highly personal implications. Meanwhile, a serial killer nicknamed St. Peter is targeting do-gooders. Despite references to The Turn of the Screw, the plot owes more to ghost-story writer M.R. James than to Henry. Evocative phrasing (“Dawn crept up onto the edge of the horizon like a thin trail of blood seeping slowly through a dull gray blanket”) is another plus in this exceptional thriller. Agent: Caradoc King, A.P. Watt (U.K.).