False Prophet

Remember way last week when I told you about fellow blogger Donna Banta's book The Girls of Fourth Ward? Well I had already started the sequel, False Prophet. By the end of Sunday afternoon I had finished it and guess what? It was even better than the first! The fast paced action scenes, the strange rituals, and a few LOL moments made it difficult to put down. Not to say that I didn't have to put it down, because I still had to take bathroom breaks, do a few farm chores, and take a few minutes to be sociable, but other than that I just kept reading.

The book starts again in Abbotsville about a year and a half after The Girls From Fourth Ward ends. There has been another murder. Detective Ryan is called to the scene where he sees a body, face down, in a pool of blood. "His other hand was wedged beneath his chest, forcing an unnatural bulge. I pulled out a pair of latex gloves from my coat pocket. "Would you guys pick him up? I want to see what's underneath."
    Gatz and Mosely lifted in tandem. I squatted down and turned over a blood soaked leather volume. Gold embossed letters spelled The Book of Mormon.
    I shut my eyes and whispered, " Jesus Christ. Not again."
Later, sister Zimmerman who is at least nine months pregnant (glad I am not a woman) and questioning her Mormon ways, helps Detective Ryan go into the temple (he has already been loaned the special temple wardrobe in a suitcase from a gay ex-Mormon) to find more evidence for his investigation. His presence at the secret ceremony is awkward to say the least, as he has never gone through the wardrobe changes required and he ends up running, in his 'sacred outfit' like a halfback over "a low wall that overlooked what appeared to be a gentle slope of ivy. It was my best hope. I took the wall in a flying leap.
   Turned out the gentle slope was more like an ivy-covered cliff. I latched onto a sturdy vine, but it unraveled from the clump like the hem of a cheap sweater and then broke free, leaving me to tumble downhill like a dislodged stone. I landed in a gully, came to my knees, spit out a mouthful of ivy, swiped more leaves off my arms and shook like a wet dog to get to the rest."
There is a wedding scene later on that Ryan crashes in order to do some more questioning and put some more pieces together. The young woman getting married is one of the girls from the first book. Ryan thinks, "I craned my neck to get a look at the poor bastard she'd tricked into marrying her. The kid resembled a young George W. Bush, only sober."

I won't give away any more. Suffice it to say if you want a good mystery with familiar and unfamiliar scenes (unless you are knowledgeable about Mormons),  great plot twists and wonderful characters (some likeable and some not), you will like this book.