Whom Shall I Fear?

Garr Reed Mystery #1

by Athol Dickson

As Texan Garrison Reed investigates the murder of his old friend, Ernest B. Martin, found hooked on a fish stringer, he wonders how he could have missed his friend's drug habit, tries to avoid being arrested for the crime, and grows in his Christian faith

Genres: Fiction, Christian Fiction, Mystery, Christian

462 pages, Hardcover

First published November 4, 1996

About the author

Athol Dickson's parents were living on the road when he was born. His first bed was a drawer lined with towels in a travel trailer. He has loved road trips ever since. Boating is a passion, too. Athol owns three boats, and once lived aboard a yacht full-time while cruising the Gulf of Mexico and the USA's Atlantic coast. But Athol's nine novels are proof he can sit still and write if he's with his wife of nearly 30 years, The Lovely Sue. They live in Southern California, where Athol is at work on novel number ten, the second in a series call "The Malcolm Cutter Memoirs" about a multi-millionaire chauffeur who would rather solve mysteries for his clients than hang out on his yacht. What bliss: a novel that combines boats and road trips!

Reviews

[T.E. George · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Faulkner once said that his characters followed him around until the only way he could get them to be quiet was to write them into his novels. As I read Athol Dickson I can picture Hale Poser (River Rising) and Riley Keep (The Cure) pecking on Dickson's brain until all he can do is put them into print. Whom Shall I Fear is one of Dickson's early works but it does not disappoint when it comes to characters one cannot forget. While Garrison Reed is the tortured hero of the story, Earnest B. is by far the most memorable member of this cast. What makes that most astonishing is that Garrison is being accused for the murder of Earnest B.

Whom Shall I Fear is a good mystery on every level. Just as in The Cure and River Rising, the hero is a good man who is also very flawed. Like Riley Keep and Hale Poser of the aforementioned novels, Garrison Reed has a secret. And his secret has eternal consequences. Dickson never fails to offer surprising twists, so anything more said would spoil the fun.

The moral of this story is unforgettable. Secrets, like caskets buried too shallow, always pop up sooner or later. As Earnest B. always told his friend Garrison, "Makes you wonder, don't it?"

[Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whom Shall I Fear? is a suspense novel with a strong Christian message. The novel is set in East Texas hill country. The story starts out with Garrison Reed, a prosperous construction business owner, finding a dead body hanging from a fishing stringer while he is out fishing on Martin Pool, a lake his property borders. The body appears to be that of the Ernest B., the man who had been Garr's best friend all his life until a recent event which had broken their friendship. Because of the recent ugly altercation between the 2 men, Garr becomes the prime suspect, and the local sheriff seems determined to pin the crime on him. However, the novel goes beyond being a suspense novel as Garr attempts to find out who the real killer was. For nearly 20 years, he has pretended to be a devout Christian to his beloved wife, Mary Jo, because he didn't want to lose her. Woven thoughout the book is his struggle with finding spiritual faith. His marriage reaches a crisis point as he finally admit to Mary Jo that he doesn't even know if he believes in God. In his obsession to find out Ernest B.'s killer, he resorts to dangerous acts and nearly killing a man himself while caught totally caught up in the emotions of rage and despair. He also uncovers a web of conspiracy involving the local law enforcement in a drug operation going on within the county. Although I've read many suspense novels, this one continued to surprise me until the very end. It is a well written suspense novel and also deals with very real spiritual issues of those who may be struggling to understand if there is a God at all. It is not a book about religious beliefs and doctrines but instead about coming face to face with whether one really believes there is a God who is involved in our lives.