If you are a Pentecontalist, don’t read this book. Although, on second thoughts, perhaps you should.
So how should I describe the book? I can’t improve on this interpretation by one reviewer:
“A small-town murder mystery that is also a searing examination of rigid religious ideology, the mindset and psychology of indoctrination, and the devastating consequences for women’s lives and autonomy. Lay Your Body Down is not only a gripping thriller, but a nuanced and compelling exploration of faith, family, power and accountability.”
I think I can disclose this much of the plot without a spoiler alert. Del, the narrator, is a 26-year-old woman who, several years earlier, had abandoned the Pentecontalist church in which she’d been brought up, for reasons which are gradually disclosed. She returns to her home town, which is dominated by the church, to attend a funeral of a former boyfriend, whose death has been explained as an accident. Del has her doubts, and determines to find out the truth. In the course of her investigation, in which she perseveres despite the increasingly hostile efforts of the church to prevent it, she suspects various members of the church as murderers, but the truth is withheld from her, and the reader, until the final chapter.
The author describes it as the best book she has written. I can detect only one other (Girl, 11), and I don’t intend to read it, for fear of disappointment.
If you’ve read a book that you’ve particularly enjoyed, why not tell us about it, so that other Voice readers can share your enjoyment?
Tony Barnett