A Who Dunnit!

Do you love a good mystery? I do.
 I recently read Pattern of Wounds, A Roland March Mystery by J. Mark Bertrand. I have not read many crime novels recently. I tend to read the classics, chick lit, or Christian inspiration targeted to a female audience. it was refreshing to read something that engaged my mind in trying to figure out who killed this young woman brutally stabbed by the pool. No spoilers here but I did figure it out a little bit before detective Roland March and his team.
I really liked Roland March. I have not read Back to Murder of which this book is a sequel. it was easy to get to know Roland. he is really looking for acceptance. He has found acceptance through notoriety. Yet he seems to be misjudged by all his colleagues and superiors. They think he is a rogue cop. I think he is just passionate. He has a very loving relationship with his wife, they mourn together for the loss of their only child. Yet even she tries to dress him up into the elegant clothes of her recently deceased father. Roland is not of the social or financial class of this father, so he seems like a kid playing dress up. His other issue with his wife is her new found faith in Christ that she shares with their neighbors. She pushes him to come to church. He isn't quite there yet but he seems to be wrestling on does God really control the world and if he does, why do these bad things happen to this girl in the pool, to his own daughter,his longtime missing cousin,and the people he meets along the way. The obvious suspect is the estranged husband who is trying to get it all together, but seems to "backslide" into drunkenness and brawling. Roland doubts his faith, but I think the husband is just like all of us struggling with sinful patterns that haunt us
I guess this pattern of wounds is more than the pattens of wounds on the body, it is the pattern of wounds that are past had left on all of us. Only a good God and his grace can heal these wounds. He takes our wounds.
I received this book and no other compensation from Bethany House for this review.