“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.

Luke Herron Davis Reviews "Dancing King"

Author and teacher Luke Herron Davis is the author of the fascinating and St. Louis-based Cameron Black mysteries. At his blog For Grace and Kingdom, Davis reviews Dancing King.

Luke Herron Davis

The novel, says Davis, shows “a main character in Michael Kent who continues to mature in his faith and leadership. He does so remembering with John Donne that no man is an island, and true leadership occurs in community with others, not in isolation. Not a bad picture of what God’s family should be like, incidentally.”

Davis also noted how the structure of the novel differs from its predecessors, Dancing Priest and A Light Shining. He solidly grasped what I was trying to do. (The structure, in fact, was the limiting factor when I was writing the novel; what I had simply wouldn't work and kept leading me down rabbit holes. Only when I heard one character clearly speak about "writing this down" did what I had to do become clear.)

You can read the entire review here.

“A Shattered Peace” by Luke H. Davis

Detective Cameron Ballack of the St. Charles County police department in Missouri is assigned Special Investigative Division that serves the metropolitan St. Louis area. The division investigates major crimes, especially murders connected to religious organizations.

He was appointed to this team because of his crime-solving work at a Greek Orthodox seminary (detailed in Litany of Secrets). His first major case with the special unit, recounted in The Broken Cross, involved the Roman Catholic Church. Ballack is something unusual among policemen – he’s wheelchair-bound because of congenital health issues. He’s also an agnostic, which makes for interesting conversation with his minister father and Christian mother and sister, not to mention his teammates in the division.

First it was the Orthodox, and then the Catholics. Now it’s the Protestants’ turn, in A Shattered Peace by Luke H. Davis.

Ballack and his team are called to Dayspring Community Church, a large Protestant evangelical church in a well-heeled suburb of west St. Louis County. A counselor, the assistant director at the counseling center associated with the church, has been found dead in her office. It doesn’t take the medical examiner long to learn she’s been murdered, with crushed ribs and fatal internal injuries from being punched in her back.

Suspects abound. The counselor was at odds with both the center director and the senior pastor at the church, who were maneuvering to remove her. Some of her fellow counselors can’t provide solid alibis for the time of the murder. And then the detectives have to consider her clients and former clients, some of whom might have their own reasons for disliking the counselor.

The detectives’ personal issues keep intruding into the case. Ballack’s girlfriend seems to be pushing away from him. His partner, Tori Vaughn, has a family crisis. Another team member will recognize someone whom she thinks murdered her father. Ballack’s sister has been dating one of the counselors at the center. The personal issues swirl around the team, and Ballack has to work hard to keep the team, and himself, on track.

And then there’s a second murder.

Luke H. Davis

Davis teaches at Westminster Christian Academy in St. Louis, and is chair of 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 two previous Ballack mysteries, Litany of Secrets (2013) and The Broken Cross (2015), and the first book of a new series, Joel: The Merivalkan Chronicles Book 1 (2017).

As in his earlier mysteries, A Shattered Peace is more than a simple mystery story or police procedural. The reader gains insights into how a large Protestant church (one with a dominating senior pastor) actually functions. And the characters regularly discuss theological and faith issues, and how faith applies to life. Ballack, as an agnostic, provides a counterpoint to the more faith-enthusiastic characters.

And it wouldn’t be a Ballack mystery without a rather thrilling conclusion – and A Shattered Peace clearly has that. In all of these mysteries, Davis maintains a high level of pace, narrative development, and reader interest. This third installment in the Detective Cameron Ballack series is the best yet.

Related:

Reading a Novel that Stars Your Hometown.

My review of Litany of Secrets.

My review of The Broken Cross.

Top photograph by Nik MacMillan via Unsplash. Used with permission.