Prayer

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.).

April 15, 2014
In this departure from Kerr's Nazi-era Bernie Gunther series (the Berlin Noir trilogy, etc.), Houston-based FBI agent Gil Martins investigates the mysterious deaths of a group of outspoken atheists. A transplanted Scot, Martins is a lapsed Catholic who curses religion following the execution of a man in whose wrongful conviction he played a part. After his fervently devout wife leaves him over his lack of faith, taking their son, he's even more spiritually adrift--a feeling only intensified by a visit to the massive Izrael Church of Good Men and Good Women near the Johnson Space Center. He's gone there after a female member of the congregation confessed to having killed one of the atheists and jumped to her death--but not before sending Martins a video in which she reveals she was actually a Hasidic Jew from Brooklyn writing about Christian nationalism. She joined a cabala-like cult headed by the powerful pastor, who has unusually strong ties to the rabbinical community. The cult, she claims, causes terrible things to happen through the power of prayer. Though there are more convincing fictional portrayals of Houston, Londoner Kerr seems relaxed in this sister city of sorts, and this is one of the more laid-back thrillers in a while. Ultimately, though, that's part of the problem. The story doesn't unfold with enough edge or urgency, and Martins is too bland to make up for that. Plus there's something troubling about Kerr's use of a plot by ex-military types to bomb a local synagogue as a mere warm-up act. Though an interesting change of scenery for the author, the novel fails to distinguish itself.

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Starred review from March 15, 2014

Raised Roman Catholic in his native Scotland, Houston FBI agent Gil Martins is suffering a loss of faith, endangering his marriage to his increasingly evangelistic wife, Ruth. At the same time the Bureau is seeking a serial killer dubbed Saint Peter for the murders of a handful of particularly upstanding, do-gooder residents of the Houston-Galveston area. Then Martins's close friend, retired archbishop Eamon Coogan, alerts him to the mystifying deaths nationwide of prominent people who publicly reject, even ridicule, organized religion. When a woman, just before committing suicide, confesses to killing one of the victims, Martins is drawn further into a life-threatening investigation of the Izrael Church of Good Men and Good Women and its charismatic pastor. VERDICT Kerr is known for writing in, and mixing, various genres, and the moral complexity of his protagonist, World War II homicide detective Bernie Gunther (Man Without Breath), in his praised historical crime series has been noted. Here moral complexity is raised to a new high in a contemporary psychological thriller that is eerily terrifying and disturbing. [See Prepub Alert, 11/10/13.]--Michele Leber, Arlington, VA

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2014
Houston FBI Agent Gil Martins' somewhat skeptical Catholic faith is unraveling. A member of the Domestic Terrorism Task Force, he tells his supervisor, Half the terrorism in this country is done in the name of God, Jesus, or Mohammed, and he refers to himself as an atheist who goes to church. That church happens to be his wife's Evangelical megachurch, and it is poisoning their marriage. But a series of inexplicable deaths of atheists and secular figuresthey appear to have been frightened to deathleads him ultimately to another Houston megachurch. What he finds there threatens his sanity and his life. Kerr's acclaimed Bernie Gunther series (A Man without Breath, 2013) focuses on a Berlin cop-turned-PI who is sucked into Hitler's SS, a deeply cynical man who copes with monstrous moral ambiguities and industrialized carnage in order to survive. Martins is different: he's a true believer careening toward a nervous collapse. Kerr, who spent considerable time in Texas, portrays Houston as a boiling kettle of Christian Nationalists at murderous odds with anyone who doesn't share their faith and politics. A compelling and unsettling change of pace for the popular Kerr.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)