Customer Reviews

Lest Ye Be Judged

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I suggest you read LEST YE BE JUDGED (iUniverse, Inc., 2007) by David C. Trimble.

In it the gay bishop consecrated in 2003 becomes Rt. Rev. Thomas Becker, Bishop of Oregon. The Presiding Bishop becomes Most Rev. Dr. George Bryant, Becker's strong ally. The murder victim is the disgusting Rt. Rev. Dunstan Mitchell, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Kentucky. You'll join almost everyone else in being glad Mitchell is out of the picture soon.

One of the major suspects is a circuit court judge and right-wing curmudgeon who writes scurrilous threats regarding ECUSA on Midwest
Conservative Journal, Drell Descants, TitusOneNine, and StandFirm. The judge uses the moniker KingHenry2 (as in "Who will rid me of this
meddlesome priest?")

Most of the other main characters have secrets too. Few smell like a rose.

If LEST YOU BE JUDGED overdraws a few of your friends, it returns the favor for some of your enemies.

Instead of railing at one another here on HoBD, read the book to consign high dudgeon to the strong lawyers for the dramatic trial in Breckenridge, Kentucky. Periodically an anonymous person from 815 will call to orchestrate major turns in the plot, right to the very end of the book.

In the introduction, Trimble speaks of his own bishop, Rt. Rev. Stacy Sauls, Bishop of Lexington: "I have had the honor and pleasure to work with Bishop Sauls on several matters within the church, and am very glad to report that he and my fictional creation, Bishop Dunstan Mitchell, have little or nothing in common."

Trimble is a lawyer. Fortunately he writes this novel with the clarity a jury requires, not with the opacity of a legislator. I delayed several other chores to read it non-stop. I enjoyed the fiction far more than Trimble's own volatile site in conservative blogosphere,
[...].

The author of "Lest Ye Be Judged" stares unflinchingly into the soul of the modern day Episcopal Church and reveals the face looking back at him is not unlike the subject of Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray." As a trial attorney for more than 20 years and a lifelong Episcopalian, I expected this book to interest me, but I did not expect it to blow me away. It did on every level. The intrigue created by the complex plot and believable characters set against current gay controversies propels this tale into a legitmate page turner. The author's description of the trial and the wait for the jury's verdict is as realistic, dramatic, and well done as any legal thriller I've read and far better than most. The book vividly portrays scenes of natural beauty and unnatural ugliness which provide a backdrop for a story that twists and turns into an ending you will not guess. This is a fascinatingly original work which is profoundly distrubing, yet real and utterly compelling. Five stars, no question.

This novel starts out very strong, but the conclusion left me disappointed. On one level this is a terrific book -- indeed, a page turner -- a murder mystery & a searing satire on the Episcopal church. But there are problems with it, especially as a murder mystery. Yes, the revelation of the murderer was a (seeming) shock & yes, the clues were all there. So far, so good. But the murderer's identity was revealed, not through good police work but rather a drunken slip of the tongue. This seemed somewhat anticlimactic, almost incidental. In fact, the detective work seemed to go nowhere. There was a good team of policemen, a female state trooper, & a female medical examiner, & a little help from the NYPD -- but their part of the story just petered out & their efforts seemed ineffectual in the end. There were also a lot of loose ends never tied up. Why was the visit to ECUSA HQ ("815") never followed up on? The relationship between 815 & the murderer was also never explained, yet it was a crucial part of the story. And who assisted 815 in setting up the accused? The reader is just left baffled on so many key points. There is also a graphic gay sex scene that seemed to me totally gratuitous. I do hope this author writes another novel, though. He has lots of potential.

What a great read!! This new book grabs you in the first page and doesn't let you go until you close it. Twists and turns, great insight into legal and forensic dealings, and a shocker at the end all give the reader hours of pleasure. The characters are rich and the locations are artfully presented. Whether you are religious or not, you cannot deny that this offering by a new author is NOW and hip and totally gripping.

Don't miss it!!!

This book needed an editor ("abject emergency"?) and a fact checker (Henry VIII did not designate himself Defender of the Faith). It is sadistic in tone and sloppy in execution.

I heard about the book and wanted to read it. I finally gave up on the library ever getting a copy and bought one myself, thinking I would share it.

The story is amazing. It gripped me from the first pages. But then there was the graphic autopsy. Okay, maybe that was needed that for the story. There are constant sexual (gutter language) references to women's bodies as men lust after them. Didn't like it, seemed out of place in a novel that didn't really need it. But when I hit the very very graphic, explicit sex scene just after the middle of the book, I quit. I don't need those images forever burned into my brain.

This book needs to carry an X rating. No wonder the library doesn't have it.

Just got it from Amazon, and read it through in one sitting. It reminded me of Chris Johnson, Anglican Investigator, or perhaps Hayden Konig, but without the laugh track. Some deftly done characterizations, and interesting plot twists, made a lot of things come out as not quite what they seemed at first. As with "The Sixth Sense," when you get to the end, after the shock dissipates, you find yourself looking back to see if the author played fair with the reader. He did!

This book combines Episcopal church politics, love, lust, murder, and a trip through the legal system from autopsy to trial. Set in the beautiful Bluegrass region of Kentucky, I suggest you settle in with a good bourbon and enjoy the intrigue!