“The Dark Road” by Luke Davis

The story starts with a flashback. Detective Inspector Gareth Benedict of the North Wales Police is on a holiday with his wife Heather. And he watches in his horror as his adventure-loving wife is soaring in the sky, paramotoring, until the motor fails, and she falls more than 300 feet into the sea, killed instantly. 

Flash forward seven years, Benedict and his team, based on St. David’s Island, are called to Reno Medical Logistics to investigate the death of one of the company’s financial executives. His body has been found in his office, seated and slumped over his desk. At first, it appears he’s the victim of suicide. But there’s no suicide note, and no explanation for the wound on his head. 

 

And down the investigation trail the police officers go. And it soon becomes clear that there’s nothing straightforward about the case. The man had apparently been investigating unusual activity involving three supply locations in southern France, but it’s unknown what that activity might have been. There’s a connection to the man’s ex-wife, a cafe owner Benedict knows well and who isn’t thrilled to be asked questions. The investigation also develops a sub-theme of romance; if Benedict hasn’t figured it out yet, we have – there’s more than a professional relationship developing with Rachel Griffith-Thomas, his detective sergeant. 

 

Then, in the middle of the investigation, Benedict discovers an unknown and unwanted truth about his dead wife, and it nearly wrecks him and the investigation.

 

Luke Davis

The Dark Road is the third DI Gareth Benedict mystery by Luke Davis. It’s both a solid and entertaining police procedural. It’s also a flat-out good story. Davis is an American, but the Gareth Benedict series read like they’ve been written by a lifelong and native Welshman. The place names, the highway directions, and the general sense of these stories seems so Welsh that I have to keep reminding myself that Davis lives in a suburb of St. Louis.

 

Davis teaches at Westminster Christian Academy in St. Louis and chairs the Bible Department there. He’s also taught at schools in Louisiana, Florida, and Virginia. He describes himself as “Presbyterian body, Lutheran heart, Anglican blood, Orthodox spirit,” all of which have served him well in writing the Cameron Ballack mysteries. He has published three Ballack mysteries, Litany of Secrets (2013), The Broken Cross (2015), and A Shattered Peace (2017), and Joel: The Merivalkan Chronicles Book 1 (2017). He blogs at For Grace and Kingdom.

 

The Dark Road is a great story; that’s the simple fact of it. And I’m glad to learn that a fourth one, All Snares of the Enemy, is in the works.

 

Related: 

 

My review of Tides of Death by Luke H. Davis.

 

My review of Island Games by Luke H. Davis.

 

Redemption: The Church in Ancient Times by Luke H. Davis.

 

Reign: The Church in the Middle Ages by Luke H. Davis.

 

Reform: The Church at the Birth of Protestantism by Luke H. Davis.

 

Renewal: The Church That Expands Outward by Luke H. Davis.

Reading a Novel that Stars Your Hometown.

 

My review of Litany of Secrets.

 

My review of The Broken Cross.

 

My review of A Shattered Peace.

 

My review of Tough Issues, True Hope by Luke Davis.

 

Some Tuesday Readings

 

An Offering of Breathing Poetry – poem by Rob Jones at Cultivating Oaks Press.

 

Winners and Rankings of the Great American Poetry Competition – Society of Classical Poets.

 

Loneliness and solidarity – Padraig O Tuama on The Dance: Poems by Christian Wiman.

 

The Sun – poem by David Whyte.

 

‘A Poet at the Tower’ and Other Poetry – Michael Paul at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Pink – poem by Carol Berrett at Every Day Poems.

Some Monday Readings - July 20, 2026

Rehabilitating Time: Memory & the Writing Life – Daniel Sundahl at The Imaginative Conservative.

Charity That’s Just Ducky – Annie Nardone at Cultivating Oaks Press.

 

At Waltham Abbey – Spitalfields Life.

 

Want More Babies? We Need More Friends – Robert Henderson at City Journal.

 

“The people here are liberty mad…” Nicholas Cresswell and the American Independence – Rob Orrison at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Archaeologists Found a 2,000-Year-Old Garden Beneath a Church. It May Be the Site of Jesus’s Tomb – Michael Natale at Popular Mechanics.

 

The Hazards of Public Life – Jeffrey Bilbro at Plough.

 

Up the Hudson and Into the Heart of America – Megan Pidcock at The Wall Street Journal (unlocked). 

 

How a Chance Meeting Gave Me Some Tools to Help Mr. Wild Dog and Rejuvenated My Dream – Katie Andraski at Katie’s Ground.

 

St. Pancras Church and the Loss of the Steamship City of Boston – A London Inheritance.

 

Painting: The Beeches, oil on canvas (1845) by Asher Brown Durand (1796-1886), part of the Hudson River School, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

In this place of waste

After Jeremiah 33:10-16 

In this place of waste,

this place so depopulated

even the beasts are gone,

in this place will be

laughter and sounds of mirth,

in this place will be

shepherds guarding flocks,

in this place will be

sounds of rejoicing and

gladness, in this place

will be the voice of

the bridegroom,

the voice of the bride,

in this place will be

the voice singing praise,

in this place will be

choruses of thanksgiving

and offerings made

in the house of the Lord.

 

It is not over.

The day is coming.

 

Photograph by Wolfgang Hasselmann via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Cultivating Fatherhood: Stories from Scripture – “Help My Unbelief” – Adm Nettesheim at Cultivating Oaks Press.

 

Gen Z Churchgoers Attend More but Often Lag in Application – Aaron Earls at Lifeway Research.

 

Rest Is Not a Thing to be Bought, but Received – Sarah Reardon at Mere Orthodoxy.

Saturday Good Reads – July 18, 2026

I know exactly where I was on July 16, 1969. Six weeks after high school graduation, three friends and I were parked along the Banana River at Cape Kennedy, part of an estimated one million people who had come to Florida for the same reason and to the same destination. We had spent the night in the car, ensuring a clear view across the river to a site about a mile or so away. Parked behind us was a young couple from Canada, who, like us, had spent the night there. We had been the first car to park. We tried to sleep, but lights from cars and vans kept us awake all night. Later that morning, July 16, 1969, we watched and cheered the launch of Apollo 11, carrying the crew that would land on the moon. 

I had heard this anecdotally before, but it’s still surprising (and to see it confirmed) to learn which Americans are the most generous, in terms of giving to non-profit organizations. The confirmation is a book, Who Really Cares, by Arthur Brooks, professor of Public Administration at Syracuse University. It turns out that the Americans who give more are the ones who mistrust big government and generally live in the so-called red states.

 

For the first time in more than 900 years, the Bayeux Tapestry has returned to Britain for an exhibition at the British Museum. It is a woven account of the Norman Invasion of 1066, and it’s almost 230 feet (70 meters) long. The BBC describes five of its key scenes. 

 

More Good Reads

 

British Stuff

 

A chaplain’s vindication – Andrea Williams at The Critic Magazine.

 

American Stuff

 

165 Years Later, First Bull Run Still Explains Why Americans Misjudged the Civil War – Ryan Thomas LaBee at Military.com.

 

America 250

 

George Whitefield: America’s Forgotten Founding Father, Part 2 – Peter Lillback at Institute for Faith & Culture. (Part 1 is here.)

 

Life and Culture

 

Feeding My New Orleans Habit – John Shelton Reed at Portico.

 

Like Fujimara’s ‘Slow Art.’ The Creative Process Takes Patience – Isaac Hans at The Anselm Society. 

 

Faith

 

Beyond the End Times: What evangelical support for Israel really reveals – Motti Inbari and Kirill Bumin at Religion News Service.

 

Was the Multiplication of the Early Church a Miraculous Movement? – A.W. Workman at Entrusted to the Dirt.

 

Questions to Ask a Deacon or Elder Candidate at an Ordination – Jack Wellman at What Christians Want to Know.

 

Poetry

 

“One Hundred Visions of War,” poems by Julien Vocance and “Anecdote of the Jar,” poem by Wallace Stevens – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Compulsive Memory and Poetic Composition – James Feichthaler at New Verse Review.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Teachers of Evil: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Melville – Thaddeus Kozinski at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

The Looting of Science Fiction – Ali Riza Taskale at Aeon Magazine.

 

An Ear for the Outsider – Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

 

My Posts This Week

 

Decision on the Stairs, a short story – at Cultivating Oaks Press.

 

Tina Kelley and Field Guide of North American Words – at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

The Scenes That Stick from a Chaotic Job – at Dancing Priest.

 

Sarah Dickinson Snyder and To Eve – at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

“The Day is Done” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – Read by Kishore Raghoobar

 Painting: Old Man Reading, oil on canvas (1909) by Albert Anker (1831-1910).

If you wander

After James 5:13-20 

If you wander,

if anyone you know

wanders from the truth,

 

allow someone to bring

you back, bring

the wanderer home.

 

Whoever brings the wanderer

home, whoever brings

the sinner home from

his wandering, saves

his soul from death,

saves his soul from

destruction.

 

Whoever brings the wanderer

home, the sinner

to repentance, covers

a multitude of sins,

a multitude.

 

Photograph by Giuliano Gabella via Unsplash. Used with permission.Some Friday Readings

 

“A Simple, Cheerful Active Live on Earth,” poem by N.F.S. Grundtvig – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

“Hark! The Voice Eternal,” poem by John Julian – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Does the Day End in Night, or the Night End in Day? – Seth Lewis.

 

Dwell – poem by Megan Willome.

 

Riding Like the Riding of Jehu – poem by Cody Ilardo at Power & Glory.

Poets and Poems: Sarah Dickinson Snyder and “To Eve”

The Book of Genesis says that Eve was created from a rib of Adam, to provide a helpmate and companion. Many have pointed out that it was a rib that was used to create her, implying equality or, more pointedly, “equalness” in the eyes of God. The story of the fall is familiar – Eve is convinced by the serpent to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, she convinces Adam, and they’re both thrown out of Eden. For their disobedience, Adam has to work the soil, and Eve gets pain in childbirth. And we know the names and stories of her first two sons, Cain and Abel, and the name of her third, Seth, whom she recognizes as a gift. 

Beyond those basic facts, there’s no further mention of Eve in the Bible. In To Eve: A Book-Length Poem, Sarah Dickinson Snyder doesn’t envision what Eve’s life was like so much as she considers Eve’s mind, her thoughts, her feelings, her hopes and dreams. And she uses Eve as a kind of lens to consider some of her own life and the life of women more generally. The poem is less an imagined biography and more of a reflection.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Thursday Readings

 

The Ballad of Zebulon Pike – poem by M.D. Skeen at The Society of Classical Poets.

 

“Jordan,” poem by George Herbert – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

The Scenes That Stick from a Chaotic Job

I worked as director of Communications for St. Louis Public Schools for eight months. It was the position I worked for the least amount of time in my entire career, the most chaotic job I ever held, and the one that likely remains the most vivid in my memory.  

Perhaps it was the political battles inside the district, the arrests at school board meetings, the ongoing protests, my boss getting doused with a pitcher of water by a member of the school board, the typical chaotic day of an urban school district. It might have been the constat media exposure, starting my first day (eight separate interviews on a teacher sick-out) and continuing until my last day. I did more media meetings and discussions in those eight months than the rest of my career combined.

 

A lot of scenes have stuck with me; a few even got worked into my five Dancing Priest novels. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Photograph of Headquarters by St. Louis Public Schools.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Van Eyck: The Portraits – National Gallery, London.

 

Does Christian Fiction Exist? – Tessa Carman at Mere Orthodoxy.

Poets and Poems: Tina Kelley and "Field Guide to North American Words"

Poet Tina Kelley seems fascinated with words, unusual often obscure words. Have you met an aeolist (a person who claims to be inspired), or been blessed by one? Have you experienced a diapause (a period of suspended development? Have you discovered that you might, at least on occasion, be a prosopagnosic (one who suffers face blindness), or that you can practice steganography (a form of writing that obscures, like invisible ink)? 

In Field Guide to Noth American Words, Kelley takes those unusual words and others and creates poems, poems that are not obscure or unusual, vivid poems about life, birthdays, aging, hacked passwords, birthdays, the future (as seen through birds), an old doll in an attic, all those rooms that the hallways of unusual words can lead you to. Like any proper field guide, the words are arranged alphabetically.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Words – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

The Beachy Poem Challenge – L.L. Barkat at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Here in This Room – poem by Larua Wifler at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

The Land of Childhood – poem by Angela Alaimo O’Donnell at Every Day Poems.

 

“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” poem by John Donne – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Decision on the Stairs: New Short Story at Cultivating

The Summer 2026 edition of Cultivating Oaks Press is online today, and the theme is “renewing charity.” My new short story, “Decision on the Stairs,” is fiction, but it’s based on something that happened to my wife and I in London in 2012. We were getting ready for our day when fire alarms went off, and the hotel had to be evacuated. The elevators were not an option; we were on the 14^th floor, and the hotel was nearly full. There was no panic, but there was rising anxiety, and people were rushing to get out.  

What happened on the stairs became a short story 14 years later. You can read the story here. You can access the entire issue here.

Photograph by H&CO via Unsplash. Used with permission.

The Viking Christians: The Day Valhalla Died

Six years ago, I published the last novel in the Dancing Priest series, Dancing Prince. A good deal of it is set on a fictitious island named Broughby in the Orkneys, off the northern coast of Scotland. One of the characters, Erica Larsson, becomes the romantic interest of Thomas Kent-Hughes, the reclusive son of King Michael who has gone his own way and avoided the royal limelight. 

Thomas, or Tommy, leads an archaeological team that discovers what looks like a Viking tomb, except that it is carved with a cross, a very Christian cross. And Erica writes a story, of novella length, entitled “Island,” which imagines how such an anomaly could have happened. Vikings destroyed churches and abbeys; they didn’t get buried as Christians. Or did they?

 

I read a lot about the Vikings as research for Dancing Prince. If I’d included everything I learned, it would have made another book. But I did write the story that Erica would tell, and the publisher agreed to include it as an addendum with the novel. And I explained the story and how it came to be in a post entitled “The Story of the Novella ‘Island’”. Dancing Price, like it four predecessors, is classified as “alternative contemporary history.” Island is historical fiction, and it was the first time I attempted anything in the genre.

 

As it turns out, considerable information exists about the Viking Christians, or how the Vikings turned to Christianity. This past weekend, I stumbled across this short video, which describes what happened rather succinctly. It’s a fascinating story.

 

Top illustration: “Ansgar Preaches the Christian Doctrine in Sweden” by Hugo Hamilton (1830).

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Best Way to See the Renaissance? Get the Panoramic View – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

The Quiet Theology of “All Creatures Great and Small” – Beth Ferguson at GC Discipleship.

 

Rare Miscalculation: The Gamble That Backfired on Conservatives (aka, how we got the income tax) – Jason Clark at This Is the Day.

What to do when sick

After James 5:13-20 

If you are sick,

if you are hurting,

if your heart

shrieks and shrinks,

if times seem bleak,

if sin dogs your steps,

 

then call upon the elders,

the elders of the church.

Allow them to pray

over you, allow them

to anoint your brow,

let them pray the prayer

of faith, because faith

is its own healing,

the healing of the soul.

 

Confess your sins

to each other,

pray for one another,

and you are healed.

Few things are as

powerful as

the prayer of

a righteous person.

 

Photograph by Alexander Grey via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Cultural Enemies – James Emery White at Church & Culture.

 

Whitewashed Tombs – Jason Clark at This Is Jason.

 

The Bible’s Influence on America’s Founding – Daniel Dreisbach at Text & Canon Institute.

 

Saturday Good Reads - July 11, 2026

It’s one of those immediate political litmus tests. The White House Domestic Policy Council issued a report on the National Museum of American History, aka the American History Museum on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Using the museum leadership’s own words and actions, the report said this: “Museum leadership has explicitly adopted an ideological framework that no longer treats the American story as a shared national inheritance to be taught or celebrated, but as a political instrument to divide, dispirit, and discourage our citizens.” Predictably, the blue side of politics and the news media were outraged; the red side of politics said, “Tell me something I don’t already know.” You can read the report yourself and decide. It’s 112 pages, but the executive summary is succinct. 

If you were asked to name the Founding Fathers, you would probably say George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. You’d think a minute, and add Benjamin Franklin and James Madison and perhaps John Hancock, he of the large signature on the Declaration of Independence. And there are others, of course. But another one, who didn’t sign the Declaration and wasn’t featured in stirring patriotic poems or songs, deserves better recognition for his more-than-significant contributions to the American cause. And his name was George Whitefield.

 

More than 30 years ago, media and education critic Neil Postman (1931-2003) warned against the proliferation of media technology, including the use of computers and related devices in classrooms. It took us more than 30 years to begin to learn he was right. I read sevral of his books, and I still have a copy of Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992). Emily Wenneborg at Front Porch Republic just read another Postman work, Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), and she discovered the theme and ideas it contains have gone supernova.

 

More Good Reads

 

Faith

 

Ministry After the Boomer Apocalypse – Derek Rishmawy at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

God is Love – Bradley Birzer.

 

Love God with All Your Imagination: A Call for Christian Storytelling – Kathryn Butler at Desiring God.

 

Life and Culture

 

Anti-family propaganda has devastated a generation of women – Kate Marland at Canada’s National Post.

 

Classical Education is for Everyone – Nadya Williams at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

American Stuff

 

The World Cup has revived American soft power – Toby Young at The Spectator.

 

Citizen Kane, Orson Welles – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

America 250

 

‘A powerful piece of propaganda: the bloody 1770 image that fueled the American Revolution – Deborah Nicholls0Lee at BBC.

 

John Paul Jones and the Invasion of England – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

Writing and Literature

 

25 American Catholic Novels (1776-2026), Part 1 and Part 2 – Craft + Practice.

 

Poetry

 

The Geography of Memory: Saving Scents to Save Sense – Sandra Heska King.

 

“I Hear America Singing,” poem by Walt Whitman – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

British Stuff

 

Lost Spitalfields – Spitalfields Life.

 

My Own Writing This Week

 

Two poetry reviews at Tweetspeak Poetry – Commodore Rookery by Christy Lee Barnes and Instructions for Use by Arlene Demaris. And a remembrance / reflection at Dancing Priest: Communicating Through the Chaos. 

 

I’ll Fly Away – The Village Chapel

Painting: A Girl Reading, oil on canvas by Alexej Alexejewitsch Harlamoff (1840-1925).

Suffering and praise

After James 5:13-20 

Do you suffer?

Sing praise!

Do you ail in body

or heart? Sing

praise! Do you

hurt? Is your

heart sick?

Sing praise!

 

Praise is not

the first thing

we think of

when we’re sick,

when we suffer.

But to sing praise

is an act of

submission,

acknowledging

the One,

celebrating

the One, even

as we suffer.

He is there.

His is always

there.

 

Photograph by Road Trip with Raj via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“Balloon Flower,” poem by Claudia Lee Hae-in – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

You Can Forgive Someone and Still Lock the Door – Lara d’Entremont at A Mother Held.

 

“Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken,” hymn by John Newtson – Anthony Esolen at Word & Sing.

 

“The Book of the World,” poem by William Drummond of Hawthornden – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.