Not a day goes by that Father Luis Chavez isn’t haunted by the cold-blooded slaying of his brother, Nicolas. But as the years pass and the case remains unsolved, there looks to be no end to his torment.When Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Story discovers a possible link between a murdered prosecutor and Nicolas’s death several years before, the priest investigates, uncovering an … international money-laundering scheme tying American banks to Mexican cartels. Finding himself the target of a brutal cartel hit squad, Father Chavez heads to Mexico, where he unearths a long-buried secret that pushes his faith to the breaking point.
As he fights to stop a seemingly endless cycle of killing, Father Chavez closes in on his brother’s murderer, learning that sometimes the most incipient evil is found closest to home.
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Father Chavez Is In The Thick Of It, Again. Put This One On Your Read List…
The Wages of Sin is the third novel and a solid addition in the Luis Chavez Mysteries series. Novel starts with the murder of Father Chavez’s older brother that occurred many years before, and then the girlfriend of Michael Story, the LA Assistant District Attorney, dies in a single car accident that is ruled an accidently death. New characters are a recent immigrant from St. Petersburg, Gennady Archipenko, who works as a financial advisor for a major bank, and Father Chavez’s estranged father. There are continuing appearances of the major characters from the first two novels.
From the death of Story’s girlfriend, the story proceeds quickly and gathers steam with money laundering at Archipenko’s banks, bullets start to fly, and the CIA gets involved. The author does a masterful job in keeping all of the storylines coherent. Each of these storylines captured and kept my interest as they finally became parallel and supporting each other or merged entirely. This merging did take a little longer than in previous novels.
The B-story primarily was centered on Father Chavez’s reuniting with his father. Much more is learned about his early years and why he became a priest, and his youth when he ran around with Oscar de Icaza who also plays a significant role in this novel. Again, the author incorporates this B-story into the main story very well. If this is the first novel of this series, I do not believe not reading the first two will affect you enjoyment of this novel. All references to previous events appear to be well explained so as not to leave first time readers high and dry.
Now, about two-thirds the way through there was an incident that immediately made me say to myself, “That is just not realistic. It would not happen.” Also leading up to this incident, the storyline did slow down some. Thankfully, the storyline sped back up and even this incident was quite adequately explained.
At the very end of the novel, the author throws in a hook to peek the readers’ desire to read the next novel. I, personally, like to see these at the beginning of the next novel vice at the end of a novel. Unfortunately, this is all too common nowadays. I call it the “Who shot JR syndrome.”
Even with these really minor issues, I rate this novel with five stars. It really is about 4.5 stars but closer to five than four. If you have read and liked the previous novels in the series, put this one on your read list. If you have not read one or both of the previous novels, but have an opportunity to read this novel, do give it a try — I believe you will enjoy it.
I have received a free kindle version of this novel through NetGalley from Thomas & Mercer with a request for an honest, unbiased review. I wish to thank Thomas & Mercer for the opportunity to read this novel early.