Review: Better than I expected
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 9, 2014
I too picked this up on a whim - the price was right (free) and I was interested in the setting and plot.  "Fatal Confession" is a character-driven mystery set in Minnesota.  Sherriff Billy Fontaine is a practicing Catholic in a small town where his brother is the parish priest, his father the retired county sheriff, his mother a retired RN who helps out at the church, and his younger brother a ne’er-do-well who drives recklessly, speeds and generally bedevils Billy in his official capacity.  He fills a vacancy on his staff with Jordan St. Claire, a hot-shot detective looking for a place to lick his wounds and who is, coincidentally, a distant relative of Billy’s.The comparison between Billy, the established “good old boy” sheriff with a human perspective on law enforcement, and the younger Jordan, a very by-the-book up and comer who has seen some ugly, ugly things in his young life, is fascinating.  Billy is not afraid to rely on his extended family and friends for information (a refreshing change from the standard cozy where the cop is forever discouraging and poo-pooing the involvement of the “amateurs”), which horrifies Jordan in the beginning, but he sees the light by the end of the book.There were a fair amount of references to God and religion, and at first I thought this might be Christian proselytizing in mystery clothes, but as I became more intrigued by the characters and figuring out whodunit, I decided that while the religious references could have been done with a lighter hand, they seemed organic to the characters rather than an agenda shoehorned into a story.It is a very “clean” book (I generally like a little more grit in my mysteries), but I found it to be well-written and entertaining, and I was sad when it was over.  I want to know how the relationship between Billy and Jordan progresses, and if Jordan can make the shift from big city to small town and if he gets the girl.  I hope there is more to come from this author.