Detectives Seagate and Miner investigate the murder of Maricel Salizar, a young exchange student, and uncover too many secrets. The most obvious suspect is the boyfriend, who happens to have gang connections. But what about the professor who brought her into his dysfunctional home? And then there's Amber Cunningham, who's obviously angry at Maricel for a sexual indiscretion involving Amber's boyfriend. Karen Seagate is used to people lying, but for her partner, Detective Ryan Miner, the lies hurt, especially when one of the liars is a bishop in his church. Author Mike Markel continues his compelling Detectives Seagate and Miner Mystery series with a thoughtful and powerful story.
The Broken Saint began with this question: how would Detective Ryan Miner, a serious Mormon, react when he learned that the main suspect in a murder case is a fellow member of the LDS Church? How would it affect his relationship with his partner, Detective Karen Seagate, whose views on whether one Mormon would lie to another boil down to, "If he breathes, he lies"?
With Broken Saint, author Mike Markel demonstrates why he is one of the rising masters of the detective mystery, his easy-reading style and compelling characters pulling the reader from page to page and chapter to chapter.
Broken Saint begins with a depiction of murder that is both compelling and revolting and then hands the story to detective duo Karen Seagate and Ryan Miner, both of whom are familiar to fans of this series. Seagate is at her most subdued in this book, having, at least temporarily, contained her inner demons. (I would not expect her equanimity to last for long given her predilection to work outside the regulations.) Instead, it is her straight-laced Mormon partner, Miner, who must confront challenges to his assumptions about faith and his expectations about those who hold positions of power and influence in his church and his community.
Throughout, Markel displays the wry humor that is his trademark, depicting weather, people, and institutions with equal measures of affection and sardonic amusement. The Seagate-Miner series has legs, and I, for one, happily expect to see it continue for some time.
--Dennis Meier
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