Book Review: FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH by Stephanie Jaye Evans

Before I get into the review, there’s something I must get off my chest. Namely, two genre words I really do not like: “cozy” and “hard-boiled.” I understand the value of these terms as mystery types, but they are so inappropriate (IMO). To me, “cozy” is granny’s favorite flower-patterned chair with the frilly arm covers. And “hard-boiled” is how I cook my eggs when I’m making a salad. (In fact, I like them 6-minute-boiled, so the yolk is a nice golden color, and still slightly moist. Mmm!) I particularly dislike “cozy,” because many “cozy” mysteries center on a murder, and murder is never “cozy.” Okay, now I’ve vented, let’s get on with the review.

FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH is Stephanie Jaye Evans’s debut novel, and is the inaugural story in her “Sugar Land Mystery” series. The book is set in Sugar Land, a small Texan town that’s home for a mix of regular Southern folk, as well as affluent sports celebrities, doctors, and lawyers. The hero of the story is a Church of Christ pastor named Walker Wells, though his friends and family call him “Bear.” He lives as quiet a life as the pastor of a 1,000-member church can, aided and challenged by his wife, Annie Laurie, and his 14-year-old daughter Jo (he has an older daughter, Merrie, but she’s in college).

In this first mystery, a young girl comes across a dead man while walking past the town’s golf course on her way to school. His head had been beaten in with a golf club. Bear was acquainted with the dead man, but not so much that he wants get involved in the investigation. But the man’s wife was active in Bear’s church, and it seems Bear might have been the last person the man spoke to. As the story progresses, Bear’s own curiosity, and the fact that the investigation keeps intersecting with his life, draws him in deeper, and gets him into more trouble than he bargained for.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. It’s written as a first-person narrative from Bear’s perspective, and the voice is believable. If you live in the South, as I do, you’ll find a familiarity to the tone, the atmosphere, the cadence of speech, and the lifestyle. Stephanie has captured it all well, I think.

A good portion of the story seems to focus on Bear’s interactions with his family, and painting a portrait of the town and its people. Given that this is the first in a series set in this same town, I think that kind of world-building is inevitable and necessary. But it’s not all irrelevant, as it helps to give context and familiarize us with the characters–and potential suspects. An important undercurrent to the story is Bear’s strained relationship with his 14-year-old daughter. I cringed a few times at the way he spoke to her and tried to deal with her rebellion, but I have five daughters, two of whom are teens, and one is a pre-teen, so I understand how hard it can be to say the right thing (and how easy it is to get it wrong!).

Bear himself is an interesting character. We would not see eye-to-eye on some important issues of theology and church government, but for a work of fiction that’s okay. The story is not advocating his theology, it’s telling his story, so I set my objections aside. Indeed, I’ve known pastors like Bear, so his character is very believable. The only quibble I would have is that on occasion he veered a little too close to the “Disney father” stereotype I have come to loathe (i.e., the dad who never gets anything right, who looks to his wife for guidance and leadership because he’s too incompetent to be the head of his household so he leaves it up to her, and who is completely dominated by his smarter teenage kids–if you’ve watched any of the popular sit-coms on the Disney Channel, you’ll know what I mean). But he only veers close–and more often than not, he shows himself to be a very human pastor, trying to do what’s right in an increasingly complex situation.

One other interesting aspect of the story I want to comment on is the character of the detective and his relationship to Bear. Detective Wanderley really doesn’t need Bear’s help in the investigation, and, in fact, more than once says that Bear should get his nose out and let Wanderley do his job. Wanderley comes across as arrogant and self-important, but he is also good at what he does. On occasion Bear discovers something only to find that Wanderley had already figured it out. Sparks fly naturally between the two men–Wanderley taking Bear’s interest as a slight against his abilities, and Bear feeling as though Wanderley is too full of himself to allow for outside assistance. Through the course of the story, though, you see the two men attempt to find respect for one another, and I suspect this is a relationship that will build as the series progresses.

The pace of the story is comfortable, with some good twists, and interesting characters. I would rate the language PG13, with a handful of s-words, and a few g-ds. If you like mysteries, this is one that’ll keep you guessing. The murderer isn’t obvious, and there are plenty of suspects to choose from.