William Heffernan

The Scientology Murders: A Dead Detective Novel by by William Heffernan is a 2017 Akashic Books publication.

A quirky hardboiled crime novel-

When a missing woman with an affiliation with the Church of Scientology is found dead, and Harry’s adoptive father is shot at the scene, he takes a little time off to investigate the crime on the down low.

This is the second novel in the ‘dead detective’ series, but easily works as a stand-alone.

For the record, Harry and his six year old brother died by their mother’s hand, only Harry managed to miraculously pull through. Now, he has the unusual gift of hearing the last words a person spoke before they perished, which of course comes in handy in his line of work. But, he is often ribbed about it by his colleagues who gave him ‘the dead detective’ moniker.

This novel is a little quirky, and not so much a mystery, as it is a crime novel. We know early on who is behind the murders, so mainly we are just along for the ride as Harry worms his way into the Church’s hierarchy to pinpoint the hitman and flush him out.

Along the way, Harry gets involved in several surreal adventures, has a romantic interlude, and has a few close calls, where his safety in concerned, and gets to do a little globe-trotting. If that weren’t enough to keep him busy, his deranged mother is stalking him, adding even more color to his life!

The author boldly singles out one of the most controversial ‘churches’ and builds a crime story around it that mimics a few real -life speculations and conspiracy theories regarding this secretive organization. But the book is not about Scientology and only skirts around its practices, giving the reader a rather vague idea how people are lured in, then conned out of their money, and the price they pay for going rogue.

As a crime novel enthusiast, I couldn’t help but pick up on the author’s mimicry, (or maybe it was meant to be an homage- I’m not really sure), of the old school style of hardboiled crime novels, with the most notable similarity being to that of John McDonald. (At least in my opinion)

However, the author is not quite able to pull that off, and the story really did have some pretty large issues.

The dialogue is bad and kind of cheesy, plus the characters have little depth or development, and the storytelling is a bit disjointed, as well as being repetitive on occasion, as Harry felt compelled to tell the story of his childhood in at least three different places.

Despite that, the book has its merits, and the series does have potential if the kinks can be ironed out. The book provided some mild entertainment on a hot July afternoon, and was enjoyable enough, plus the ending was climactic enough to convince me to squeeze out an extra half star on the rating.

3 stars… (altro)