Amazon
Category:
Mystery/Suspense
ISBN-10: 0988758423
Type: Fiction
ISBN-13: 9780988758421
Sheaves of Zion is a murder mystery set in metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia. A young criminal psychologist is charged with solving what appears to be religiously based murders.
Following his rejection by the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, Dr. Thelonious Zones finds himself counseling inmates at a South Georgia prison for his uncle’s consulting firm. It’s a job he abhors. He fears something in his past, from his childhood, may have skewed the psychological testing he underwent for the job against him. Everything changes for him, however, when he is visited by the FBI and local law enforcement during a prisoner counseling session. Dead bodies are showing up in Metro Atlanta’s religious places. His knowledge of religious and institutional symbolism in crime scenes may help in deciphering the cryptic images left by the murderer. He is joined by a seasoned detective who doubts his theories of the crimes and sets out to prove him wrong. Zones’ pursuit of answers leads him on a path riddled with mysticism and secret societies. The more he learns the more he is convinced that rigid dogma, based on ancient conflicts, is at the heart of the murders.
Excerpt
“You called about a body?” Marmaduke asked the reverend, waiting under the covered porch of a small, wood framed church, when Detective Chennault and he arrived.
“That’s right, I did.” His voice trembled. He fumbled through a large ring jingling with all manner of keys.
“I’m still trying to figure out which one opens which door. I locked this—I didn’t want anyone disturbing . . . .”
Finally Reverend Gainer, pastor of Bethel Primitive Baptist Church, found the key. He flung open the two wooden double doors and led the detectives into the sanctuary. Dim light filtered through the stained glass windows lining the grey walls. One wall, streaked with white paint, screamed through the sanctuary with images and symbols in red; along the floor of the chapel, the names “Zeus” and “Antiochus” blazed across the weathered wood.
“This is some mess,” Detective Chennault said.
“That’s not all.” The reverend led them farther into the sanctuary. His bent back and limping gait, unstable like a rickety chair, slowed his pace to the podium. “I knew something wasn’t right soon as I got the door to my study unlocked. Wasn’t no power. No lights anywhere. I thought for sure it was that storm last night, took our power out. I was heading for the fuse box—right over there,” he pointed to the back wall of the sanctuary. “Sure enough, there was a bad fuse. So when I got that all fixed and the lights came on . . . well, that’s when I saw that . . . that evil coming out of the dark.”
Behind the podium lay a gray trench coat draped over a large wooden chair. The reverend grabbed the coat’s collar, lowering it enough to expose the face of a young man—dead.
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