Sinner's Prayer - Dwain Lee

The remains of a highly regarded church member who disappeared without a trace almost forty years earlier are found buried in the basement of Parkvale Presbyterian Church in Louisville. Almost immediately after the discovery, another much-beloved former member dies by suicide at a lonely scenic roadside overlook. Are the two deaths related?

Presbyterian minister Dan Randolph is pondering his legacy as retirement nears. Now, he's got to deal with the murder, too, which hasn't just dug up bones, but also long-held secrets of misconduct, sexual abuse, and scandal-along with angry demands for his own ouster, with some claiming he's mishandled the situation.  

SINNER'S PRAYER is the second in a series of mysteries featuring Dan Randolph and his violin-making husband Greg Zhu. As the mystery unfolds, readers get an engaging, humorous, sometimes frustrating, and often touching look into their very different personalities and their unique relationship. At the same time, the book examines serious issues of not only the underlying murder, but suicide, sexual abuse within the church, homophobia, and the changing social realities of living as one's authentic self, told through a series of flashbacks from present time to 1985. Follow Dan and Greg as the mystery makes its way through southwestern Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston as well as their hometown of Louisville. Who killed the man in the basement-and why?