The Apostle Murders

Since this is my first attempt at blogging, I thought I'd start out with a bang by giving you a taste of my new suspense thriller, The Apostle Murders. If you like a fast-moving suspense that will keep you on the edge of your seat, turning pages to the end, this is it. Available in paperback, Kindle, and Nook formats, you won't go wrong with this one.

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Excerpt from my new murder suspense novel The Apostle Murders:

Prologue

Reverend Samuel “Preach” Preston was making good time. He’d pulled out of Denver at 4 o’clock Wednesday morning and reached Cheyenne, Wyoming in just under two hours before catching the I-80 west toward Utah. His Newmar Dutch Star motorhome was running perfectly after receiving her complete checkup and calibration, and he could not have asked for a better day to be about God’s business.

Interstate 80 was long, wide, and straight with very few curves or other distractions. But Preach’s mind wasn’t on the scenery. Instead, he thought about his mission and if he’d be able to complete the next sacrifice sooner than he’d originally scheduled. Would the Lord provide a suitable martyr this week, or would he make him wait for the second week of November which was three weeks away?

Preach thought about the other sacrifices he’d made over the last six months. He had biblical or historical precedence for all of them. He knew there were a few apostles later on his list whose deaths were not recorded in either the Bible or in history but he figured the Lord would provide the answers for those when he got to them. He only hoped the Lord would not find fault in his method of sacrifice, and he hoped his conscious would let him forget the pain and suffering he’d inflicted for the cause of Christ.

Now here it was October already. He thought back to August when he met Philip Carroll, a tenor traveling with a southern gospel quartet. He’d seen an advertisement about the group singing at a church in Hot Springs, Arkansas, not too far off the I-30 South on his way to Texarkana where he’d preached a night at a small country church before heading west to Abilene, Texas. He’d decided to stop and listen to the group and maybe hear some good old-time southern gospel music instead of the contemporary drivel his son’s worship center played in Denver. Preach knew Philip Carroll was God’s choice when the group’s leader introduced him and said he was originally from Bethesda, Maryland. Preach remembered thinking that it couldn’t be a coincidence.

Philip Carroll turned out to be an excellent sacrifice, and all of the pieces fell into place. Ancient church history confirmed that the Apostle Philip was originally from Bethsaida near the Sea of Galilee, and that he’d died by crucifixion at the sacred Greek city of Hierapolis, Turkey. As all biblical scholars know, Hierapolis gained its reputation as the city of health, or the city of healing because it sat on top of Turkey’s hot springs which was believed to contain miraculous healing powers.

And now Preach found himself listening to a man with very similar attributes to the original apostle in a location reminiscent of the biblical record. Surely God had provided this sacrifice and even the opportunity to abduct Philip Carroll after the concert when he’d been alone near their motor coach.

Sacrificing Philip had been a simple affair. He didn’t have time to explain his mission and to pray with Philip the way he’d done with his previous martyrs. But holding to tradition, he wanted to be authentic to history, so when he’d nailed Philip to a tree in a secluded area of Hot Springs National Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas and crucified him, he believed the Lord accepted his sacrifice and would honor his mission. Even though the park is located in the city of Hot Springs, it had taken the Hot Springs police department two days to find Philip’s body, but by that time Preach was almost five-hundred miles away and had left no trace of his identity.

Nathan Bartholomew in September had been a completely different kind of sacrifice. According to church history, the Apostle Bartholomew had preached in Armenia with the Apostle Jude around 60-AD. The only record of the Apostle Bartholomew’s death was that he’d been flayed to death in 68-AD in Albanopolis, which is now called Derbend, on the west cost of the Caspian Sea. No other record of his ministry or death existed. With exception to a short missionary trip to Turkey and India, even a record of his early life is mysteriously absent from all historical documents. The only thing that qualified Nathan Bartholomew as an apostolic sacrifice was his name.

The death of Nathan Bartholomew still haunted Preach, which was why he detested the cat-of-nine-tails stored in his cargo compartment. The sound of the whip whistling through the air, and the slap of pain as the leather straps embedded with nails and glass ripped into Nathan’s flesh caused Preach many sleepless nights. He remembered the pieces of flesh, Nathan’s flesh, still embedded on the nails when he’d inspected his supplies a few days ago, and he could still hear the boy’s screams echo in the New Mexico desert night. He recalled Nathan’s body ripped to pieces by the terrible weapon, and the blood that soaked his own hands, arms, and clothing when the whip tore into the soft flesh of God’s martyr. And although history didn’t bear record to it, the boy had been in so much pain that Preach decided to stab him in the heart to help end his suffering and buried his body in the desert outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico. He hated what he’d done, but he loved God and was willing to do anything to fulfill his mission and to make his calling and election sure.

Preach thought about the road the Lord had set him on. He didn’t understand it but the vision and voice of God was clear. Why had the Lord chosen him out of the thousands of ministers preaching his word to recreate the martyrdom of the original apostles of Jesus Christ and to restore order and discipline to the modern church? Wouldn’t a man with a wide national or international audience have been a better choice? But God’s thoughts are not my thoughts, and God’s ways are not my ways. The mysteries of eternity will only be revealed in eternity.