Water Grave by Mitchell S. Karnes

Justice, the beginnings of redemption, and vengeance play heavily in this police procedural set in Nashville, TN. It’s book one of the Abbey Rhodes Mystery series. Yes, that’s her name. Though as the reader learns, she changed her name to that to get back at her dad, an ardent Beatles fan.

Abbey has recently transferred to a homicide group, so she’s the newbie on the block. A pastor is brutally murdered in his own church. Abbey is teamed up with a veteran police detective who has lost his passion for the job due to a tragedy in his life. This story deals with recovery from trauma, church hurt, and the fallback when those trusted to be ministers go down the wrong path.

It’s well-written but does have a few typos scattered throughout. Nothing that distracted me. The style is one that a lot of crime fiction writers have taken up lately where there are first person chapters from Abbey’s point of view and third person chapters from other people’s points of view. Not my favorite technique, but it worked okay in this book. There were a couple chapters that mixed both points of view in the same scene. Jarring for a writer. But it probably won’t bother most non-writing readers.

I struggled to like Abbey in the beginning. But I didn’t know her entire background, which unfolds throughout the story. She is anti-social and rash. She makes some poor decisions that get her into hot water early with the new department. As the story unfolds, I grew to understand her more. Never really reached “liked” but that’s okay as the mystery carried the story for me.

The author portrays nearly the entire spectrum of people we’d find in a church. There are strong, Godly people, weak-minded mean-spirited people, and those who take advantage of their position. The only real complaint I have is I would have liked to see more development of Skylar, a fifteen-year-old around whom the story pivots. We get some hints and see a lot of her at the end, but I would have liked to have had more of her to make the ending more believable.

It’s a clean book. No profanity. No on page sex. There are references to rape and abuse. Some violence, but it’s warranted. This is not a suspenseful book, but it has a good mystery. I’ll rate this one number two so far this year due to the topics covered, the mystery, and the clean read.