Gerald Everett Jones's Blog: Gerald Everett Jones - Author, page 24
February 20, 2024
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Like its predecessors, Preacher Stalls the Second Coming blends unusually humane and thoughtful procedural sleuthing with a brisk pace, winning local color, and ace scenecraft and surprises, all powered by a strong undercurrent of moral and spiritual inquiry.
It won’t surprise readers of mysteries (or of newspapers) that Pastor Obadiah of the End-Times Retreat Center has secrets in his past and monetary and political entanglements with the politicians up in “Jeff City.” But Jones’s depiction of this milieu—of believers and belief, of trailer parks and superstores, of the tensions faced by the woman pastor who has replaced Wycliff—is always revealing and surprising, both warm and incisive.
Highlights abound, with a tense discussion of the Book of Revelation between Wycliff and Pastor Obadiah proving more gripping than many mysteries’ shootouts. The same goes for a scene of faith healing. Both author and detective are touchingly open to people’s better angels but not all that shocked by corruption, charlatans, and killers.
BookLife Reviews for Publishers Weekly
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Storytelling builds community.
February 18, 2024
Musicianship - What Is It?
Each of these five voices could easily overpower the others if he wanted to assert himself as a star. Yes, they take turns on the lead. But what we have here is a masterful blend, surrendering to a one-voice expression of desire.
I want to talk about musicianship.
Musicianship is a common theme of three different stories. The first is An Equal Music, a novel by Vikram Seth about a European string quartet. Another about chamber musicians in New York is the movie A Late Quartet. The third, and most unusual, is The Bear Comes Home, a novel by Rafi Zabor.
Musicianship is the first thing you notice about any band. Do you hear individual instruments and voices or a mellow blend? Inexperienced amateurs are too concerned with projecting their personal sound. Professionals know that listening to each other is a measure of not only artistry, but also of generosity.
In An Equal Music, a violinist who plays in a chamber quartet carries on a love affair with an accomplished pianist. The main issue with them is mutual trust, which is also the crucial element that binds a successful quartet. However, one of them has been slowly growing deaf and is hiding it from the other. As we learn, a relationship can work, for a while, even if it is not based on truth, but on a willingness to agree.
In A Late Quartet, the second violinist and the violist are married to each other. The violinist is having doubts about his playing, which leads a brief affair with a dancer. The arrogant first violinist is giving music lessons to his colleagues’ talented daughter. He betrays his bond to them by allowing the girl to seduce him. Again, it’s all about trust and cooperation, sometimes in spite of the underlying truth.
In The Bear Comes Home, the bear in the title is an alto sax player who is crazy about jazz, girls, and Shakespeare. He’s not a bearlike man, he’s a furry animal. And, he’s beset by the blues. Oddly, he blames his difficulties getting along with his human musician friends on everything except his essential bearishness. His situation reminds us how immigrants must feel, knowing they’re so much like the rest of us, while we can only see their differences.
Musicianship – it’s about collaboration, and what it takes for all us kids to play nice. Not just in music, but in personal relationships and even in international negotiations.
A community is a musicianship of souls.
In Clifford’s Spiral a stroke survivor tries to piece together the fragments of his memories. Was he the victim or the perpetrator? 2020 IPA Distinguished Favorite in Literary Fiction.
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February 13, 2024
Preacher #4 Gets Rave Review from BookLife
As my colleague sometimes says after succeeding at a task, “I am humbled.”The standout fourth entry in Jones’ Evan Wycliff mystery series sparkles, despite its protagonist, the one-time pastor of Missouri’s Evangel Baptist, finding himself at his lowest ebb. “I’m unchurched, defrocked, and if it weren’t for the boundless generosity of one Zip Zed letting me housesit a broken-down little trailer rent-free, I’d be homeless,” Wycliff declares—and that’s not even touching on his separation from his wife, Loretta, and the loss of his beloved dog, Murphy. Even the new friend he just met, an aged German who drags him out of that borrowed manufactured home for pancakes and heady conversation at the C’Mon Inn, is quickly ripped from Wycliff—and this mortal coil—by a passing F-150. But as Wycliff looks into the accident, plus a missing girl and the arrival in his patch of southwestern Missouri of a cultish end-times commune, he can’t stop thinking about the German’s warning: that someone out there could be planning to fake the Second Coming of Christ, this time through advanced digital technology.
Release date March 5 in Kindle and trade paperback.
Like its predecessors, Preacher Stalls the Second Coming blends unusually humane and thoughtful procedural sleuthing with a brisk pace, winning local color, and ace scenecraft and surprises, all powered by a strong undercurrent of moral and spiritual inquiry. It won’t surprise readers of mysteries (or of newspapers) that Pastor Obadiah of the End-Times Retreat Center has secrets in his past and monetary and political entanglements with the politicians up in “Jeff City.” But Jones’s depiction of this milieu—of believers and belief, of trailer parks and superstores, of the tensions faced by the woman pastor who has replaced Wycliff—is always revealing and surprising, both warm and incisive.
Highlights abound, with a tense discussion of the Book of Revelation between Wyclif and Pastor Obadiah proving more gripping than many mysteries’ shootouts. The same goes for a scene of faith healing. Both author and detective are touchingly open to people’s better angels but not all that shocked by corruption, charlatans, and killers.
Takeaway: Standout mystery of faith, corruption, and a minister at his lowest ebb.
Quoted from BookLife Reviews.
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February 11, 2024
Book Review 'A Scribe Dies in Brooklyn'
A Scribe Dies in Brooklyn is the second novel in Marvin J. Wolf’s Rabbi Ben mystery series.
I have known the author for years as a masterful storyteller who has a knack for finding compelling subjects. I call him by his first name because, I proudly confess, he’s a colleague and a friend.
You may come to think of Rabbi Ben, the protagonist of Marv’s mystery series, the same way. Here is the kind of righteous, empowered avenger you’d want as a friend if you ever found yourself the target of unscrupulous thugs in a dark alley in the boroughs of New York.
Rabbi Ben Maimon made his literary debut in For Whom the Shofar Blows (originally titled The Tattooed Rabbi). Ben’s mission in this second thriller is to track down a missing ancient manuscript, the Aleppo Codex, the oldest known Hebrew copy of the Tanakh, which contains all twenty-four books of the Hebrew Bible. If you think a quest for some crusty, old parchment would be a scholarly snore, you’ve been living in a cave and never heard of Dan Brown or never seen Tom Hanks’ portrayals of the obsessive Dr. Robert Langdon. And, like Langdon, Ben has a talent for finding obscure facts, beautiful women who offer their passionate assistance and support, and more physical threats than your average street-wise operative could handle.
As to the physical threats, you’d think a man of God would rarely if ever need to resort to violence. But, as in ancient times, these days not only books but also places of worship are being destroyed by zealots who want to rewrite history. And, as the global underground economy grows ever larger, there are thieves and cutthroats who don’t hesitate to kill for religious artifacts because one side or the other is willing to pay for them with suitcases full of cash.
So, as is the deceptively mild-mannered Mr. Wolf, Rabbi Ben is accomplished in the martial arts. If your heart beats faster when a good thriller is peppered with against-the-odds altercations, some bloody, you will not be disappointed.
Another close colleague of mine, the sci-fi cult author Thomas Page, recently reminded me that Ian Fleming believed readers lust after pointless detail. That’s why fans of his James Bond thrillers know a Walther PPK from a Smith & Wesson .45 and why if you drive an Aston Martin you will thank your mechanic for tuning up the turbocharger when you need to make a fast getaway.
Readers of A Scribe Dies in Brooklyn whose scavenger minds likewise lust for detail will learn so much here about Jewish arcana that you might feel as though you’ve successfully completed a college-level course in religious studies.
And you will eagerly dive into the other immersive Rabbi Ben mysteries.
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Preacher Stalls the Second Coming (Evan Wycliff #4) will be released in trade paperback and Kindle on March 5, 2024. Preorders are available on Amazon now.
February 9, 2024
What's 'Between the Covers' ?
It’s another spirited exchange of views about Preacher Stalls the Second Coming, including parallels to recent political discourse about AI fakes and internment camps.
Evan is always asking why bad things happen to good people.Feed your curiosity with a paid subscription to this Thinking About Thinking blog. With a paid subscription, you’ll gain access to all the content that’s here, including podcasts, and you’ll be helping us build our worldwide community through storytelling and self-expression.
#4 releases on March 5. You can preorder now.
February 4, 2024
Evan Responds to 'The Protagonist Speaks'
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Release date for #4 - March 5. You can preorder the Kindle now.
February 2, 2024
Book 101 Review of 'Preacher #4' on Apple Podcasts
Book 101 Review is a concise and informative guide that offers an overview of the art of book reviewing. This comprehensive episodes covers the key aspects of writing insightful and engaging book reviews, including analyzing plot, characters, writing style, and themes. It provides valuable tips on structuring review, offering constructive criticism, and expressing your personal opinions in a balanced manner.
Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts. Click here to preorder Amazon Kindle. Release date for paperback as well - March 5, 2024.
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February 1, 2024
'Good News' with Paul Sladkus
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January 31, 2024
The Preacher Evan Wycliff Mystery Series
Evan Wycliff is an amateur sleuth, the main character of my mysteries Preacher Finds a Corpse, Preacher Fakes a Miracle, Preacher Raises the Dead, and now Preacher Stalls the Second Coming (March 5). Amateur sleuth is a well-established subgenre of mystery, but stories about clergymen who investigate crimes are perhaps a sub-subgenre. As a reader myself, my favorites of these are the Rabbi Ben mysteries by Marvin J. Wolf, including A Scribe Dies in Brooklyn.
Now, putting on my writer hat, I will admit that casting an amateur sleuth in the role of investigator is one of the easier choices. If the main character were a law-enforcement official, the technical challenges for the author are much more restrictive. Those plots fall into the category of police procedural. The author must understand the protocols of criminal investigations, including crime-scene surveys and forensic analysis.
But protagonists who are amateurs needn’t follow the rules – especially because they are likely to be ignorant of them and – what’s more – they have no business poking their noses where they don’t belong.
In the Preacher novels, it isn’t Evan’s intention to do any of this. In the first book, Preacher Finds a Corpse, he happens on the body of his best friend in a cornfield. Bob Taggart is dead – apparently by suicide, which is also obvious to the cops and to the coroner. But Evan wonders – even if no one else pulled the trigger – did someone drive Bob to do it? Wouldn’t that be a sin – if not a crime?
Evan’s curse – or his blessing – is his curious mind. And, like good investigators, professional or not, he’s both a data-driller and a close observer. At the outset of the series, Evan gets only part-time gigs – as a guest preacher at the local Baptist church and as a skip tracer (bill collector) for the town’s car dealership.
And because he has some success finding the truth, false rumors circulate in this southern Missouri farm community that Evan is a faith healer. His growing reputation attracts people who need help – not just spiritual guidance but also resolutions to personal crises that no one else in town seems to have any interest in solving.
So – one might ask – are the Evan Wycliff mysteries Christian fiction? I’d think not – my sense of that genre is it’s intended to provide inspiration – to offer answers to questions.
In Evan’s world, there are always more questions than answers.
The Preacher Evan Wycliff Mysteries#1 in Kindle or EPUB is free. The new title #4 is available now for preorder in Kindle format. All titles are available in trade paperback.You need not read them in sequence!
Available from Amazon Kindle Apple Books BN Google Play Kobo (and just about anywhere you buy ebooks). Also available in trade paperback from booksellers worldwide.
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January 27, 2024
Preacher Fakes a Miracle
Short-term deal!
Available from Amazon Kindle Apple Books BN Google Play Kobo (and just about anywhere you buy ebooks)
About the series…
Amateur sleuth Evan Wycliff is a disillusioned divinity student who is fascinated by astrophysics and given up both.
He's returned to his small-town farm roots in Southern Missouri. He is also disappointed in love. His beautiful fiancé was a brilliant Jewish scientist, a defense contractor who was killed in a rocket attack in Syria. These days Evan gets guest preacher gigs and uses his investigative skills as skip tracer for the local car and tractor dealership.
“This is literature masquerading as a mystery. Carefully yet powerfully, Gerald Jones creates a small, stunning world in a tiny midwestern town, infusing each character with not just life but wit, charm and occasionally menace. This is the kind of writing one expects from John Irving or Jane Smiley.”
- Marvin J. Wolf, author of the Rabbi Ben Mysteries, including A Scribe Dies in Brooklyn
Some troubled teens are in much more trouble than they realize.The gentrification of Missouri farmland has brought not only casino culture but also investors and influencers from all over the world. Evan Wycliff, a lapsed Baptist minister and unconfessed agnostic, often gets dragged into dealing with problems others have given up solving. There's an orphanage that serves young women, and some get placed in part-time work at the lakeside resorts.
They're supposed to be working in the laundry. But some have been pushed upstairs.
And then one went missing...
Available from Amazon Kindle Apple Books BN Google Play Kobo (and just about anywhere you buy ebooks)
Feed your curiosity with a paid subscription to this Thinking About Thinking blog. With a paid subscription, you’ll gain access to all the content that’s here, including podcasts, and you’ll be helping us build our worldwide community through storytelling and self-expression.
And if you’re already a paid subscriber…
Gerald Everett Jones - Author
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