Tag Archives: Church life

by | May 16, 2011 · 4:00 pm

Mark Schweizer. The Alto Wore Tweed. Hopkinsville, KY: St. James Music Press, 2002.

In this novel, the first book in the Liturgical Mysteries series, we are introduced to Hayden Konig, the chief detective in (fictional) St. Germaine, North Carolina.  St. Germaine is a quiet little mountain town, one that hardly needs a full-time detective.  Which is good, because Hayden’s passions are elsewhere.  Hayden likes the ladies, he has long wanted to write a detective novel, and he is a knowledgeable and talented organist.  Week in and week out, Hayden probably spends more time at his church than at his office.  When the longtime rector at St. Barnabas retires, Hayden is none too pleased with his replacement, Loraine Ryan.  Mother Ryan favors hymns and a service style that Hayden barely tolerates.  But soon it turns out that the style of the Sunday morning service is the least of Hayden’s concerns.  On the same night that someone steals the church’s communion wine, the sexton is murdered, and Detective Konig finds that few of his his fellow church members will give him a straight story.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2002, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Schweizer, Mark, Watauga

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by | April 4, 2011 · 5:09 pm

Frank A. Clarvoe. The Wonderful Way. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1956.

As a young man, Wilford Hollester was a good student with no particular sense of purpose, but when his mother dies, his life changes.  Shocked by her death and touched by the kindness of the local bishop, Hollester becomes a minister. This novel follows him through seminary and as his begins in ministry in several mill towns in the North Carolina Piedmont.  By meeting personal and professional challenges he becomes a better person and more secure in his vocation.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 1950-1959, 1956, Clarvoe, Frank A., Piedmont, Rockingham, Stokes

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by | March 18, 2011 · 4:09 pm

Mark Schweizer. Liturgical Mysteries.

Hayden Konig, the main character in this series, is one busy man.  He’s the police detective in the fictional little North Carolina mountain town of  St. Germaine.  He’s also the choirmaster and organist at the local Episcopal church, St. Barnabas, and an aspiring mystery writer.  Hayden pecks out his novels on Raymond Chandler’s 1939 Underwood No. 5 typewriter, something he bought at an auction at Christie’s.  It was quite a splurge.  Hayden thought it would provide inspiration, but he soon finds that his little town gives him more material than he can use. Over the course of the series, Hayden encounters civic clubs battling over who’ll have the prime time for the living creche display, nudity at a nearby church camp, a missing gorilla, diamonds in the town’s time capsule, a chicken known as Binny Hen the Scripture Chicken who selects passages from the Bible, an assortment of flaky and funny townsfolk, and dead bodies that turn up in the choir loft with unsettling frequency.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2010-2019, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Schweizer, Mark, Series, Watauga

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by | March 4, 2011 · 3:34 pm

Carl Kenney. Backslide.Victoria, BC: Trafford Publishing, 2010.

Backslide picks up where Kenney’s earlier novel, Preacha’ Man left off.  Simon Edwards is living in Dallas with his love, Jamaica, and teaching at a seminary.  Simon should be happy, but he feels uneasy with his decision to leave the ministry.  He knows that he is succeeding at the seminary, but he senses that this is not what God wants him to do.  When a phone call comes from Calvin, a former member of Simon’s church, asking Simon to come start a new church, Simon returns to Durham, North Carolina.

Simon throws himself into creating the new church, but success is not a sure thing.  Many of the same forces and individuals who fought Simon in his earlier ministry are still around, and Simon has to learn to move beyond bitterness and earlier definitions of success.  He also has to reconsider his feelings for some of the women in the church.  Simon is without Jamaica, who has stayed in Dallas for her work, and some of the tension in the book comes from Simon’s struggle with their relationship.

This is a slower-paced, more introspective book than Preacha’ Man.  As Simon reflects on his situation, he considers insights from modern theology as well as the Bible, adding depth to the story.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Durham, Kenney, Carl, Piedmont

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by | February 21, 2011 · 11:37 am

Carl Kenney. Preacha’ Man. Victoria, BC: Trafford Publishing, 2004.

Simon Edwards moved to Durham, North Carolina to teach, not preach, but he allowed himself to be pulled back into parish ministry.  Shady Grove Baptist Church prospered under his care.  The size of the congregation grew, its finances stabilized, and the church brought inner healing to its members and concerned engagement to the community.  But not everyone liked that.  Deacon Andrews, whose family founded the church, is used to having every pastor under his thumb. The deacon spreads rumors about the pastor and stokes the flame of discontent among those who like the old ways.

Church politics can wear a man down.  Strong family support and a clear mind can save him, but Simon has neither of these.  His wife, Janet, suspects him of infidelity even while her actions threaten the marriage. Simon himself is full of pain from abuse and missteps earlier in his life.  As the novel builds to a conclusion, Simon must decide whether to fight for his pulpit or flee to a new life.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2004, Durham, Kenney, Carl, Piedmont

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by | October 29, 2010 · 3:33 pm

Jacquelin Thomas. Samson. New York: Gallery Books, 2010.

Samson Taylor was raised to be a man of God.  His great grandfather founded Hillside Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the men of his family, down to Samson’s own father, have been pastors of the church.  Now Uncle Zachariah is the senior pastor, and he has called Samson to be his assistant.  Samson, a graduate of Duke and its divinity school, intends to walk humbly with the lord and make his family proud.

But Samson is not just a man of God, he is a man of the flesh too.  Like his father before him, Samson has a weakness for beautiful women.  His weakness leads him into situations that hurt him, his ministry, and those who love him: marriage to a woman not of his faith, an act of revenge against his wife that hurts many people, a dangerous relationship with a married woman that leaves him broken and humbled.  Uncle Zacharia and Aunt Hazel try to guide him, and a true friend is there for Samson when he hits bottom, but Samson has to decide for himself what kind of man he will be.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Piedmont, Religious/Inspirational, Thomas, Jacquelin, Wake

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by | October 3, 2010 · 10:39 am

Lynette Hall Hampton. Jilted by Death. Johnson City, TN: Silver Dagger Mysteries, 2004.

Willa Hinshaw is the new associate pastor at First United Methodist Church in Liverpool, North Carolina. She’s expecting that her job will involve sermons, Bible study sessions, and counseling. She’s not expecting kidnapping and murders, but that’s just what she encounters in this, the first novel in the Reverend Willa Hinshaw Mysteries series.

Lee Ann Poole, a lovely young woman from one of the town’s best families, is someone who Willa has meet only briefly after a church service.  Despite that, Willa is called in by her boss, the Reverend Philip Gallaway, to deal with the crisis when Lee Ann elopes on her wedding day, leaving her parents and her fiance bewildered.  Willa handles the immediate crisis beautifully–sending the flowers to a nursing home, the fancy food to a soup kitchen, and turning away the wedding guests in a dignified manner.  At home that night, Willa is exhausted and more than a little shocked when Lee Ann calls in a panic, saying she is in danger and begging Willa to come to Statesville to get her. Soon Willa is deep into the mystery of Lee Ann’s disappearance–consoling her mother, gently questioning the young man’s family, working with the retired policeman who is investigating the case.  Eventually Willa herself is in danger as the kidnapper spins a web of deceit and murder.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2004, Hampton, Lynette Hall, Mystery, Novels Set in Fictional Places

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by | April 22, 2010 · 9:23 am

Ann B. Ross. Miss Julia Renews Her Vows. New York: Viking, 2010.

Now what woman wouldn’t be a bit upset if her husband of just a few years tells her that he thinks they need to attend “marriage enrichment” classes–and those classes are led by someone she knows to be a shady character?  Leading the “Stoking the Embers” classes is Dr. Fred Fowler, a man who once tried to make the case that Julia was too mentally incompetent to manage her first husband’s estate.  Miss Julia and Dr. Fred have a little personal history too, the memory of which fills Miss Julia with shame.

Rev. Ledbetter, Miss Julia’s nemesis, is behind this, but Julia has an ally in Rev. Ledbetter’s wife, Emma Sue, who also wants out of the classes. Both women feign illness, but hiding out in the bedroom all day just doesn’t work for Miss Julia.  Young Lloyd is staying with her while his mother is on her honeymoon and Julia is preparing for the newlyweds to live with her and Sam until their twins are born.  Julia also is busy trying to clear a friend of an assault charge, and Julia would like to send the newly returned, much-married Fran Delacorte back to Florida before she gets her hooks into Sam.

It’s almost too much for Miss Julia, but readers know that she will come through as she has done in the previous ten books in this series.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Henderson, Humor, Mountains, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Ross, Ann B.

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by | April 4, 2010 · 11:28 am

Ron and Janet Benrey. Gone to Glory. New York: Steeple Hill Books, 2007.

Daniel Hartman, the pastor of the Glory Community Church, was introduced in the first novel in this series.  In Glory Be! Reverend Hartman was dealing with division within the church over the use of a $600,000 bequest.  The pastor can be forgiven if he believes that money is the root of all evil because now, in Gone to Glory, he is contending with the fallout from bad investments that caused that $600,000–and more–to evaporate.  The church financial secretary was conned into risky investments by Quentin Fisher, a man who posed as a Christian financial adviser.  Fisher is now dead, and the church is suing the company he worked for.

McKinley Investments is a legitimate company, with insurance to handle suits such as this.  Lori Dorsett, the undercover investigator who the insurance company sends to town, expects that she will quickly find the information she needs to derail the church’s case.  Lori sidles up to Reverend Hartman, hoping that by playing him she can get the inside scoop on the church’s plans.  That’s when things get complicated.

This is the second volume in the Benrey’s Glory, North Carolina series.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Benrey, Janet and Ron, Coast, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Pasquotank, Religious/Inspirational, Romance/Relationship

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by | March 27, 2010 · 2:18 pm

Ron and Janet Benrey. Glory Be! New York: Steeple Hill Books, 2007.

A $600,000 bequest has created factions in the Glory Community Church.  The bequest was given to support the church’s music program.  The traditionalists want the church to use the money for a new pipe organ while younger members of the congregation push for equipping an auxiliary sanctuary with instruments and a sound system for more contemporary style services.

Innkeeper Emma McCall is part of the church choir but she hasn’t paid much attention to the controversy.  That changes when a VW Beetle is deposited on her inn’s front porch one morning–along with a note criticizing her lack of support for the contemporary music service.  It seems that there have been a series of pranks around town, possibly related to the church controversy.  The police, including Rafe Neilson, the handsome deputy chief who comes to talk to Emma, think that the pranks don’t rise to the level of crimes.  That changes when Lily Kirk, retired librarian and head of the traditionalist faction, dies in a suspicious car accident. Was Lily’s death related to the church controversy or something in Lily’s past?  As Emma pokes her nose in the investigation, Officer Neilson notices more than just that cute nose.

This is the novel that kicks off the Benrey’s Glory, North Carolina series.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Benrey, Janet and Ron, Coast, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Pasquotank

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