Retro Reading: Faithful Unto Death by Stephanie Jaye Evans
When thirteen year old Jessica Min came across Graham Garcia's body the story should have followed that path. Instead, we never hear about Jessica again.
And thus begins the first in this two part series.
After Graham's body is discovered, local preacher Walker "Bear" Wells is dragged into the murder investigation since he was with Graham two days before his murder. Bear knew Graham's "secret" and didn't think it was his place to tell anyone, including Detective James Wanderley.
As Wanderley tries his hardest to get the information, Bear stands his ground and winds up asking more questions than getting answers from his daughter Jo and her relationship with Graham's son, Alex.
Although the book is supposed to be faith based, I found it kind of ironic that Bear's wife, Annie Laurie, drinks wine (it seems like a lot) and Bear doesn't condone it. Afterall, isn't drinking kind of like inviting the devil over to dinner?
Another ironic fact to this book comes when Bear settles down to read a book. He claims that his favorite author doesn't use a lot of description, but here, author Stephanie Jaye Evans is constantly describing events.
She writes the longest monologues for the characters (maybe if you're an aspiring actor/ess you should pick up the book just for the monologues alone) sometimes going three or more pages. In order to break up the dialogue, she will throw in a question or two from Bear.
While I'm not a religious person (and there's nothing wrong with having faith) I did feel that the over praying that Bear and Annie Laurie do is a bit over the top. Now I know people do pray, but they seem to pray over every little detail.
Per usual in these first person stories, I the entire story to be dragging and boring. I think there were a few times it could have gone off into more interesting directions, but Evans doesn't go there. It would have been interesting if there had been a scene or two devoted to Jessica Min and how a thirteen year old would have felt, but the opportunity is missed.
If you are looking for a faith based mystery, this may be enjoyable for you, but, if I didn't have the sequel, I probably wouldn't have lasted past the second chapter since I really didn't care for the story or the characters.
