By P.J. Coldren
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John Jordan is an unlikely person to be a prison chaplain, a struggling, flawed person with a strong but questioning religious faith. Jordan comes into work at the Potter Correctional Facility one morning to find out that Warden Edward Stone has made arrangements for televangelist Bobby Earl Caldwell, his wife Bunny, and adopted mulatto daughter Nicole to hold a service in Jordan's chapel that evening. Nicole is killed during that service. I think Lister does a serviceable job writing about a murder in a pressure-cooker of a setting. I really don't know how "true" the setting is, but it reads true to me. The romantic sub-plot(s) strike me as a little more unlikely, but still viable. Lister presents Chaplain Jordan as a sympathetic character, flawed but aware of (most of) his flaws. There is one killing in the book which I am not sure was absolutely necessary, but it wasn't a gratuitous killing; it worked in the confines of what was going on in the story at that moment. If you like Darryl Wimberley, you will probably like Michael Lister and Blood of the Lamb. |