The Long Call by Ann Cleeves

Matthew Venn goes to his father's funeral but he doesn't go in.  He's been banned from this church because he dared speak against it as a teen.  Even his parents kicked him out of the house.  He's a detective now and has married but it's to a man and that's another piece of damning evidence against him.  He can't worry about that now.  He's just been called about a murder down at the beach.

Minotaur Books and Net Galley let me read this book for review (thank you).It will be published September 3rd.

The man has been stabbed to death.  Little does Matthew know just how deep this murder will take him into his past.  There are ties to the church he left, to the business his husband runs, and to the moneyed people of the village.  Many of the questions asked are met with answers that don't sound right but it takes him a bit to put it all together.  

This is a good mystery with a lot of players.  I was surprised at the actual killer.  An interesting touch was that two women with Down's Syndrome ended up being kidnapped and he's looking for them, too.  The first one he finds says the man asked her a lot of questions but she didn't know what he was talking about.  When you find out, it's disgusting.

There's much to learn about life in these pages.  This story will stick with you for a while.