Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Serpent-handling churches?  Yes, they do exist, but finding out where they are located is difficult because in some states the practice is prohibited.  However, churches in West Virginia are not breaking any laws by allowing clergy and parishioners to handle cottonmouths, rattlers, and other poisonous reptiles during their services due to the state’s constitution that forbids any interference with religious practices.

The New Hope Pentecostal Church in Vintera, West Virginia, is home to Pastor Micah Granieri and his congregation.  They believe completely in the passage in the New Testament that says that true believers will not be harmed when handling serpents or by drinking diluted strychnine, the latter also a part of the services.  

Essa Montgomery grew up in the church, a church that takes the verse from the New Testament literally: “They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them….” Mark 16:18.  But serpents killed her mother and then her father, pastor of the church, and she hasn’t entered New Hope since.

Essa works at the Vintra Wildlife Investigation Laboratory and has for the past four years, since she was sixteen.  The facility is run by Dr. Wick Kester, who was lured out of retirement by the opportunity to run his own lab.  At the end of her workday, as she approaches her car in the dark parking lot, she’s met by two of the town’s police officers.

They tell her that earlier that morning a major fire swept through the church, heavily damaging it and killing two teenagers inside.  And because of a previous argument that Essa’s brother Clyde had with the pastor, the police believe he is the arsonist.

Now she must speak to Pastor Micah, to convince him that her brother is innocent and that the preacher needs to tell that to the police.  With great reluctance, because she has ignored the man ever since he took over the church’s pulpit, she allows him into her house and explains what she wants.  He says he’ll do it, but “I only need one favor in return.  Can you guess what it is?”

Essa isn’t the only woman whose life now revolves around the church fire.  Clyde’s pregnant girlfriend Juliet is of course distraught at the thought that her fiancé might be charged with arson and homicide, and Merritt Callahan is hoping that this story is the big break that will take her from the small local television channel she’s working for and into a major market.

Erica Wright has written a fascinating mystery that combines an amazing sense of place, unique characters, and a murderer’s twisted logic.  She is an essayist and poet and currently teaches at Bellevue University in Nebraska.  You can read more about her at this website.