If you enjoy a mystery suspense novel but without the blood and gore that often accompanies murder stories, LAY YOUR BODY DOWN (Text 2023) by Amy Suiter Clarke will fit the bill. Gripping, compelling and nuanced, the terrible violence of this book is off the page; the reader does not have to confront it face-on but rather must unpick the moral and practical consequences of the characters and their actions.
The story centres around Del Walker, a young woman who years earlier fled her small hometown, mostly to escape the cult-like features of its church, The Messiah, which holds a determined grip on the inhabitants of Bower, Minnesota. The head of the flock, Pastor Rick, has his fingers in every pie in Bower and the immediate surrounds – the businesses, the sports and extra-curricular activities, the youth groups, the financial systems and of course, with his ‘confidential prayer sessions’, he is inside the heads of almost every community member.
Del is drawn back to Bower in the first pages because her ex-boyfriend – and local church leader – Lars, dies in a tragic hunting accident and Del wishes to attend the funeral, despite the anxiety this brings. She is ambivalent about seeing her parents, with whom she has had no contact for years. She is nervous about returning to the town with which she was once so familiar. And mostly, she is worried about coming face-to-face with Eve, once her best friend and recently Lars’ wife. But out of respect, she returns, only to find that there are perhaps more secrets in Bower than even she previously realised.
Eve was semi-famous in that when she was 15, she began writing a blog about being a Noble Wife, the ultimate biblical female partner, submissive in all ways to your husband. As the years passed, and Eve matured and eventually married, her blog grew in popularity from her small, local church to an online outreach program of many tens of thousands, all supported by Pastor Rick, who considered Eve his formal mouthpiece in terms of Noble Wife philosophy and how it supported The Messiah Church structure.
But when Del returns, she discovers that Eve isn’t grieving in quite the way expected, Pastor Rick’s teachings have become even more evangelical, patriarchal and insidious, and the more she learns about Lars’ death, the more she is convinced it was not an accident. Determined to unearth the truth and uncover the lies, Del is mysteriously threatened by someone keen for her to get the hell out of Dodge. Complicating matters is the fact that Del has her own buried memories, guilt and remorse and pain from past incidents that involved her and that she was made to confess to the Church. Digging into the current predicament only serves to uncover more of what she’d rather forget.
The sections written about the cult-like (but ostensibly perfectly harmless and in fact godly) aspects of the church, and the conduct of its leaders, are seamless and authentic. I suspect the author has had some similar dealings in the past. I grew up in a religious (protestant) family, and some of the interactions and instructions she describes could certainly have been my own experience. These shocking episodes are enhanced by the very real nature in which they are described, not only meetings with church leaders, but the far reaches of the church into a small society, and the knowledge that the leaders and youth pastors know everything about everyone.
As with her first novel (which utilised a podcast in an epistolary nature), the author uses blog posts and diary entries from both Eve and Del to accompany the main narrative. These glimpses into the past help develop the current scenario and the characters’ backstories. LAY YOUR BODY DOWN exposes the dangers of close-minded, closed (and close) religious communities where to expose truths or to dare to leave is a risk not many are willing to take. And as I said earlier, a great example of a gripping suspense novel that leaves the gory details off the page and only in the reader’s imagination.
And remember, if you want to read a book but it was published a couple of years ago, your local bookstore is always happy to order a copy in for you, or you can request it at your local library.