Lay Your Body Down
A Novel of Suspense
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- $34.99
Publisher Description
A People magazine must-read of summer!
"Suiter Clarke paints a devastating portrait of a cultlike institution and a town in its thrall. It’s even worse than we imagined." — New York Times Book Review
A young woman returns to her rural Minnesota hometown, where a radical evangelical pastor has poisoned everyone’s minds—and may be covering up a murder.
After Del Walker fled her small hometown and its cult-like church, she vowed to never return. The man she loved, Lars, left her to marry the local golden girl Eve, and their romance is now the focus of Eve’s viral blog espousing the pastor’s conservative philosophy about women and marriage. But six years later, Lars is suddenly killed, and she’s convinced it couldn’t have been an accident.
When Del returns to her hometown for the funeral, she discovers the now mega-church—and the insidious, patriarchal teachings of Pastor Rick Franklin—has grown not only in size but in influence. Eve was clearly discontent in her marriage, despite the carefully constructed “Noble Wife” positivity of her blog posts, and Del knows better than anyone just how far she will go to get what she wants. Del is determined to cut through the church’s lies and corruption to find out who killed Lars—even if it means confronting the religious trauma she’s spent years trying to bury.
"There are midnight-snack-style thrillers, and those that stick with you. This one's the latter." —People magazine
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this enthralling psychological thriller from Clarke (Girl, 11), 26-year-old Del Walker, who has been "bouncing around minimum wage jobs" since she graduated college, opens a days-old voicemail from former flame Lars Obam, whom she hasn't seen in years. His message is cryptic: "I need to talk to you. You... you were right." A quick internet search turns up news that Lars has died in a hunting accident and the funeral will be held in Del's hometown of Bower, Minn. Though she vowed never to return home, harboring major resentment toward the cultish local pastor, Del suspects foul play after hearing Lars's voicemail and knows she must go back to uncover the truth about his death. Del is a dynamic narrator, and Clarke augments her musings with excerpts from her teenage diary and blog posts written by Lars's wife, in which she presents the teachings of Bower's sinister pastor. All of this intrigues, though the ending might strike readers as a touch too predictable. Still, this salacious mix of small-town cults and amateur sleuthing is mostly satisfying.
