The Prodigal Daughter
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
In the wake of the #MeToo movement, has it become easier to speak out about sexual assault in religious communities?
Linda Wallheim, increasingly disillusioned with her Mormon religion, has begun marriage counseling with her husband, Kurt, a bishop in the Latter-Day Saints Church. On other days, Linda occupies herself with happier things, like visiting her five grown sons and their families.
When Linda’s eldest son, Joseph, tells her his infant daughter’s babysitter, a local teenager named Sabrina Jensen, has vanished, Linda can’t help but ask questions. Her casual inquiries form the portrait of a girl under extreme pressure from her parents to be the perfect Mormon daughter, and it eventually emerges that Sabrina is the victim of a terrible crime at the hands of her own classmates—including the high school’s golden boys and future church leaders.
Linda’s search for Sabrina will lead her to the darker streets of Utah and cause her to question whether the Mormon community’s most privileged and powerful will be called to task for past sins.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Harrison's heart-wrenching fifth Linda Wallheim mystery (after 2018's Not of This Fold) finds Linda, the wife of an LDS bishop in Draper, Utah, drawn into the role of amateur investigator by the oldest of her five grown sons, Joseph, who teaches Sunday School in nearby Ogden. Sabrina Jensen, a 15-year-old who regularly babysits for Joseph and his wife, has disappeared, but her parents appear unconcerned about her whereabouts. Linda, a self-described busybody who can't resist helping anyone in need, throws herself into searching for Sabrina, who she eventually learns was the victim of a terrible crime committed by "good Mormon boys." Linda winds up trekking the meaner streets of Salt Lake City in her effort to save Sabrina. Meanwhile, she struggles with the strictures of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and her fraught relationship with her husband, with whom she's in marriage therapy. Harrison adroitly raises various ethical issues as the suspenseful plot builds to a devastating climax. Those looking for a nuanced character study will be rewarded.
