The Churchgoer

by Patrick Coleman

“He was finished with church, with God, with all of it. But to find the girl, he has to go back.”

In Mark Haines’s former life, he was an evangelical youth pastor, a role model, and a family man—until he abandoned his wife, his daughter, and his beliefs. Now he’s marking time between sunny days surfing and dark nights working security at an industrial complex. His isolation is broken when Cindy, a charming twenty-two-year old drifter he sees hitchhiking on the Pacific Coast Highway, hustles him for a breakfast and a place to crash—two cynical kindred spirits.

Then his co-worker is murdered in a robbery gone wrong and Cindy disappears on the same night. Haines knows he should let it go and return to his safe life of solitude. Instead, he’s driven to find out where Cindy went, under stranger and stranger circumstances. Soon Mark is chasing leads, each one taking him back into a world where his old life came crashing down—into the seedier side of southern California’s drug trade and ultimately into the secrets of an Evangelical megachurch where his past and his future are about to converge. What begins as an investigation becomes a haunting mystery and a psychological journey both for Mark, and for the elusive young stranger he won’t let get away.

Set in the early 2000s, The Churchgoer is a gripping noir, a quiet subversion of the genre, and a powerful meditation on belief, morality, and the nature of evil in contemporary life.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Noir, Crime, Thriller, Audiobook, Adult Fiction

368 pages, Paperback

First published July 30, 2019

About the author

Patrick Coleman's debut novel, The Churchgoer , is a “LitHub Most Anticipated Book of Summer.” His debut poetry collection, Fire Season , was written after the birth of his first child by speaking aloud into a digital audio recorder on the long commute between the art museum where he worked and his home in a rural neighborhood that burned in the Witch Creek Fire of 2007. It won the 2015 Berkshire Prize. His other writing has appeared in Hobart, ZYZZYVA, Zócalo Public Square, the Black Warrior Review, and the Utne Reader, among others. Coleman also edited and contributed to The Art of Music, an exhibition catalogue on the relationship between visual arts and music (Yale University Press with the San Diego Museum of Art, October 27, 2015). He earned an MFA from Indiana University and a BA from the University of California Irvine. He lives in Ramona, California and works at the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at UC San Diego. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram @patrickmcoleman or visit patrickcoleman.org for more information.

Reviews

[Maxwell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately this was a bit disappointing. I was initially drawn to this book because it is set in San Diego, and as a native of the city I thought it would be fun to read a book set here (as I've only ever read one other book ever that's set in the area). And that aspect was fun—to read about very specific places, neighborhoods, restaurants, streets that I grew up going to. But it wasn't enough to win me over.

The story is very slow and the core motivation is lacking. It tries to tackle too many subjects, and ironically, while being anti-religious it ends up becoming a bit preachy and one-note. By the end I found myself skimming the longer passages and eager to get to the end. The characters weren't well realized enough to have my full attention, and unfortunately neither was the plot.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Churchgoer is basically an old-fashioned, seedy, noir, San Diegan mystery cobbled together with what appears to be excerpts from Patrick Coleman’s existential, meandering, nonfictional blog titled Why I Hate Church and You Should, Too! I don’t think he really has a blog, but he does hate church, man.

And in some weird way, as a guy who has wrestled extensively with his old childhood faith lately, this book struck a chord with me. I’m not anywhere near the level the protagonist (was it Mike or Mark?) is. He’s in a really bad spot, and his life is at a very low point, and, as far as he is concerned, it’s all God’s fault. I’m not Mark (or Mike). I’m not drifting along in San Diego, surfing, recovering from alcoholism, and getting in over my head and trying to solve a mystery. But, some of what he has to say when he rambled on about church and stuff spoke to me, and then it just annoyed me and then it angered me and then I just felt apathetic about the whole thing.

This isn’t your typical dark mystery novel about a disappearing woman though. That does happen, and a lot of the book is dedicated to that plot, but this is more of a character study. This is more about a guy losing his faith in one thing and searching for somewhere new to stick it. At times, Mark reminded me of Howard from Uncut Gems (and the book kind of has that same vibe, actually). You don’t really ever root for him at all, but you’re interested in what he’s doing and where he ends up. You never really feel sorry for him, but you want to see him come out on the other side.

The book starts strong, but it loses its focus on the middle and it really loses its footing. Coleman presses pause on a lot of what drove the first third of the book and spends too many chapters with Mark venting about church, going back to church, bashing church, etc. You spend way too much time in his head, and his character just kind of falls apart and you don’t care anymore after a while.

In the end, when you learn more, it’s almost too little too late. And then the story and the mystery wrap up really quickly and remind you it was never about that anyway. His is about Mark, who you meet in the present and eventually learn more about his past, but who you ultimately lose interest in because he’s lost interest in everything anyway. Coleman may have found a better groove by writing some kind of atheist book like Dawkins or Hitchens first and then coming back to writing a noir tale from the beaches of San Diego. The two things mixed together don’t always jive well, and the book really feels disjointed and unorganized at times because of it.

Anyway, it’s gonna be a TV show or something I guess, and it may work better on screen if they can find a better balance of compelling mystery and character study.

[Alison Hardtmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mark Haines is a security guard, working at a light industry park in the down-at-its-heels city of Oceanside, California. He surfs a bit, enjoys a breakfast burrito and works hard to keep himself together and to himself. He had been the youth pastor at a mega-church until he lost his faith and went of the rails, which left him with a daughter who won't speak to him, an ex-wife who still prays for him and little else. Then, one morning, he pays for a hitchhiker's meal and is pulled right back into life again, but also a lot of trouble. The hitchhiker is a young woman running from her past, but she's been associating with some shady characters, which may all lead Mark into more trouble than even a cynical loner can handle.

This novel combines two things that I like a lot. The first is a well-told and solidly plotted noir, and the other is a complex and nuanced main character. Coleman does a superb job telling Mark's story and in creating a character whose every action stems from who he is and what happened to him in the past. Mark is a thinker and an analyser, not at all compassionate with himself, but who does understand people. Coleman is also a talented writer. His descriptions of Oceanside and of the communities further inland are atmospheric and razor-sharp. I wasn't sure I'd want to spend an entire novel with a judgmental white dude like Mark Haines, but by the second chapter I was utterly hooked. Literary noir doesn't get much better than this.

[Amory · Rating 1 out of 5]

Seemingly endless unbelievable situations follow on from unbelievable dialogue. Which are worst characters or plot? It’s a photo finish

[Leo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Been in the mood for diffrent kinds of noir that stands out a bit, uses something diffrent as a plot point or characters. This one sounded interesting because it has topics such as belief and morality mixed in the normal murder mystery. However it didn't work for me. Hard to put a finger exactly on why but didn't feel it was handled as good as I had hoped.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Going into this book, I knew it was going to be anti-religious, anti-God and anti-church, but I read it anyway. The protagonist, a former youth pastor, is a bitter older man who felt betrayed by God and his thoughts are apparent throughout this book. Some areas of the book would veer off in this direction with a few pages devoted to his religious cynicism. It got a little heavy handed in parts which makes me wonder about the author's own personal life in regards to God.

The actual storyline of the book was intriguing and I was easily able to engage with what was happening. This author is a great writer and definitely has a way with words and expression. His use of metaphors and similies added a depth and richness to the story. Because of this and the first person narative, the story had a noir feel to it. I really enjoyed this!

Special thanks to LibraryThings Early Reviewer's program for the opportunity to read and review this book.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is the mark of good writing when you continue reading, even though you cannot sympathize with the characters. While I was not very sympathetic to the main character, the writing is robust and vibrant. As the book progresses, the story takes on a life of its own and propels the characters forward to the climax. I appreciate that the author did not go for the stereo typical happy ending, but chose an ending consistent with the characters themselves. It is an honest and refreshing work, and it invoked emotions that were at times unexpected.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved this. Found happenstance. The ending gave me weird vibes, but it may be I'm not American. Also, sometimes books just give vibes. I thought how he talked about death and being caught up in something it's hard to control was honest. The author speaks at the hypocrisy of the church-world in it's showiness, but better yet the pushing. Paraphrased: if they can't change you they don't care for you, give you the time of day like a diaper they wouldn't even pay retail price for, here you can have cloth. Also how hard it is to get out of like any cult. The surfing stuff was neat, altho I'll b the first to admit, I'd b crashing those waves. No thanks.

No second novel yet. If I miss the release, if one, I hope one of my fellow book readers will post.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to the publisher, via Netgalley, for an advance e-galley for honest review.

The style of The Churchgoer wasn't quite what I expected- I had it in my head that this would be more plot-driven mystery, but this is more literary fiction style noir. It's a dark story, and it seems unlikely at many points that the main character will make it out alive or not behind bars, making this a bit of a nail-biter. I struggled to understand why the character of Cindy meant so much to main character Mark (misdirected feelings regarding his estranged daughter? Maybe?) that he went to the lengths that he did, but in general I feel like I maybe just missed the mark on this book in general.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Instantly jumps into my top five books set in San Diego. A tightly plotted noir that is also an existential rumination on what it means to come to the end of things: both spiritually and geographically. A reluctant detective with all kinds of skeletons in his closet that come tumbling out after doing a good deed. It's got all the moves of a classic detective novel but I still didn't see it coming.

Mark Haines, the protagonist of Patrick Coleman’s debut novel “The Churchgoer,” published earlier this year by Harper Collins, doesn’t have a lot going for him. The disgraced pastor has lost everything: his church, his family, and his reputation.

Stripped of his congregation, Mark works as a security guard on the graveyard shift and sleeps the day away in a run-down apartment in Oceanside. The highlight of his existence is the hour before sunrise when he paddles out into the surf to catch a few waves.

The rest of the time, Mark tries to keep his smoldering resentment at bay by minding his own business. But when he makes the mistake of buying a hamburger for a young woman in distress, his life turns upside down after she disappears.

Thrust into the role of a reluctant detective, Mark gets sucked into a sordid drama involving wild surfer parties, drug-dealing youth group leaders, and sleazy pastors with plenty of secrets. His good deed does not go unpunished and his own skeletons come tumbling out of the closet.

Despite Mark’s evangelical past, “The Churchgoer” is every bit as hardboiled as the crime novels of Raymond Chandler and Jim Thompson, who briefly lived in San Diego.

As a former preacher, Mark has a way with words and his once Christian worldview is decidedly caustic. Here’s Mark describing a former associate: “His thin lips parted to reveal a set of shimmering white teeth: perfect teeth, pristine teeth, the kind of smile you can’t help smiling back into on a face that would give a dermatologist a spiritual crisis.”

Coleman, who lives in Ramona and works at UCSD, dispatches his detective all over San Diego and takes pleasure in puncturing the myth of San Diego as America’s Finest City.

“The Churchgoer” is a tightly plotted noir with all the classic tropes of a detective novel; but it’s also an existential rumination on what it means to come to the end of things. The detective’s search for clues to solve the mystery stands in for man’s search for meaning in a world ruled by uncertainty.

“The wish for certainty,” Mark realizes, was a wish for death.”

[Jake Rosenberg · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was not good. I am surprised the editor didn't remove pages and pages of the narrator's boring and repetitive inner-monologue. In the final third of the book, I just started skimming- looking only for dialogue and descriptions of action. I would recommend that you not read this book.

[Adam Bricker · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you can imagine Henry Chinaski after he quit drinking, found and abandoned religion (not in that order) placed in a well-developed surfer pulp novel...this is that!

[Jo Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

the book had a message, but not sure what it was.

[Mark Miano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Usually I can tell whether I like a book or not by the length of time it takes me to read it. If I like it, it’ll go fast. If I love it, it’ll go even faster; an intense feeding that happens at all hours of the day and night. But with THE CHURCHGOER, the spectacular debut novel by Patrick Coleman, I purposefully slowed down, savoring not just the elegantly paced plot, but every morsel of Coleman’s sentence structure and word choice.

Coleman is an interesting writer. His work has appeared in literary journals and a book of poetry even won a prize in 2015. As a lover of crime noir, I love that his debut novel is set as a surf noir.

Believe it or not, surf noir is a scintillating sub genre of mystery fiction. Amidst the stacks of crime sub genres, besotted with everything from cat detectives
to run of the mill hard boiled dicks, rides a glorious wave of surf noir. Have you read (or even heard of) TAPPING THE SOURCE or THE DOGS OF WINTER by Kem Nunn? How about CUTTER AND BONE, TO DIE IN LA or DREAMLAND by Newton Thornburg? More recently how about Don Winslow’s THE DAWN PATROL, THE GENTLEMAN’S HOUR, SAVAGES, and THE WINTER OF FRANKIE MACHINE? Or, if you’re into nonfiction, the Pulitzer Prize winning BARBARIAN DAYS by William Finnegan?

You can’t miss with any of these books, and that includes Coleman’s debut about Mark Haines, a former evangelical youth pastor who abandons his wife, his daughter, and his beliefs. If you’re looking for a great novel - not just a mystery, but a spectacular, well-written novel - look no further than this book. Oh yeah, those other books are really great, too.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s clear that Patrick Coleman has an axe to grind against evangelical culture. He uses The Churchgoer as an outlet to do so.

I’m a Christian and while I’ve always been a mainline Protestant one (translation: a tad more open-minded than many), I’m quite familiar with the evangelical culture Coleman is skewering here. Many of his references and stories brought back flashbacks to my own life. Attendance numbers have steadily declined in these churches for the last decade (reflective of a decline in church attendance amongst all denominations) but in the 90s and aughts, they were cultural powerhouses. The music, the preachers, the musicians. It was everywhere.

The faith aspect of it is one thing. I’m never going to disrespect anyone’s faith, or lack thereof. But the structure of many of the churches leaves something to be desired. Coleman goes after both. In the latter, he does a much better job. He knows the lingo, the methods, the people. He knows how it works. The former…well it didn’t bother me. I read plenty of atheist or non-theist writers. But the main character’s lack of faith sometimes leads into long internal monologues about life and love. Some work, others don’t.

Those monologues comprise about 60% of the book itself. The rest is the mystery, which is standard issue crime fare and good enough for a first time novel writer. You basically have to decide if you’re willing to set the mystery aside for large parts of the novel in favor of a misanthrope’s musings. It worked for me. It may not work for you.

[Jordan Chapman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mark Haines is an ex-pastor who left his life and family behind after a loss of faith, and he gets embroiled in web of missing persons, murder, and drugs. I found the premise compelling - a sun-drenched literary noir set among the megachurch milieu of Southern California - and the writing both sharp and smart, but ultimately found it to be a bit of a disappointment.

This is a book with some interesting ideas, but nothing to really say about them. We get of an idea about the source of Haines' anger, bitterness, and loss of faith - toward God, toward the world - but it's left unexplored in any real depth. Similarly, the setting wanted to critique of a familiar type of retail evangelicalism, but what was mostly toothless and trite. These were the ideas that made the book interesting to me, that seemed to make this unique from other crime stories. What I was left with - an unlikely detective trying to figure out an even unlikelier crime - wasn't worth it in the end.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a strange book! Mark Haines is an ex pastor. He has had it with God, religion, and the church. He was once a family man, someone everyone looked up to. Then he abandons his family, his life and becomes a surfer who works security at night. He then meets Cindy , a young girl hitchhiking. They talk, she disappears, a murder is committed and Mark becomes a suspect. Sounds confusing? Yes it is. And complicated. There is a lot of religion in this story along with evil and self hatred. Not exactly an uplifting story. I won this book from Librarything.

[Jane Constantineau · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I found the plot compelling and the characters intriguing. The main character is incredibly flawed, but I ended up caring about him despite his questionable behavior. The descriptions of So. Cal are vivid and spot on. While the plot twists and off-beat characters kept me interested, it was the intelligent insights and turns of phrase that made the book exceptional.

[Jessica · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got 1/3 of the way into this book and couldn't finish. I didn't care about the protagonist or the plot at all, and I felt the way the protagonist "read" everyone's motives and actions was really tedious. I don't want to waste time on something I'm not enjoying, so it's time to move on!

[Jim Thomsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm going to have much more to say about THE CHURCHGOER at a later time — it's the kind of novel that requires a few re-readings and a lot of thoughtful digestion — but for now, suffice it to say that this underheralded novel is absolutely worth the time of anyone interested in a man's honest reckoning with his male gaze (oh, and also, God and religion and society and stuff; but, really, Mark Haines' main issues are with the women in his life, and the specific woman he thinks he wants to rescue, but also maybe have sex with, as his redemption vehicle).

It's a novel with crime in it — there's a murder and a missing woman and a soiled Everyman's need to fix everything as a way of fixing himself — but calling THE CHURCHGOER a work of crime fiction feels cruelly reductive. It's a novel as shaggy as the circular peregrinations of fallen pastor Mark Haines, its central character, in shaggy search of shaggy new truths that allow him to lift himself up from his marginal existence, or maybe to find continued cold comfort in his apocalyptic alienation. It's also a novel of place — truly a great Southern California novel, as incisive about beach lifer as it is the newer and more soulless communities inland — and above all a novel of ideas as funnelled through character which is plumbed to every possible layer of petrified depth.

And yet, for all that depth, it's never anything less than compulsively readable. (At one point, I made a note: "Kem Nunn goes to church," and somehow that still feels right as a brutal sort of shorthand summary.)

It's also got one of the better voices I've ever read; if the measure of a great book is in its quotability, its ability to distill essential insights, interpretations and truths in near-tweetable form, THE CHURCHGOER is an all-time classic. I could easily blow up this review with at least a hundred excerpts that struck with the originality of their pathos or their pithiness (the two qualities this novel has in abundance). I'll share just a few from the first few chapters as an appetite-whetter:

— "I hadn’t made a habit of helping people for a long time, and there was plenty down in there to be suspicious of, along with the one or two better impulses that had adapted to the lack of light and air, like a couple ghost crabs warming their claws on a deep-sea thermal vent."

— "“No matter how you rhyme it, Dr. Seuss was just another rich f**k from La Jolla who stepped out on his wife and didn’t look back after she swallowed a bottleful of barbiturates. His books are garbage, too. Rhyming a generation’s brains into insipidity.”

— "Maybe I wasn’t touching some Eternal All anymore, or seeing the world in a grain of sand and a bead of salt water, but in the moment this felt better. I was feeling my limitations, and his limitations, and rubbing up against humankind’s ability to make life an ineluctably large pain in the a** for others—the sad, gorillan mass of this humanity hurtling toward an unsatisfying and unceremonious end."

— "What I did wasn’t fixing. It was discovering the injured person and then administering a kind of spiritual waterboarding.

— "I’d been called ambivalent often enough, by everyone from my ex-wife to the guy taking my order in the Robertito’s drive-thru. There was always an intended dig in it, an insult, but I failed to see what was wrong with it—took a certain pride in it, in fact. People with certainties were the problem."

— "Maybe she was closer to me, not angry at God for anything He’d done or ordained but angry at Him for being a ghost, a figment, an illusion—angry at the minds of some indefinite number of prior selves who had been fooled by the movement always on the edge of vision, the feeling of being watched that never went away, that sense of a presence who granted the deepest wish: never to be alone.

— "He looked, the way all newborns do, like a disgruntled member of the California Raisins."

For now, I can say that if this kind of writing and thinking appeals to you, read THE CHURCHGOER. There's a lot more where that came from, and a lot more to say about them.

[Dimitrije Vojnov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nic Pizzolatto je sa McConaugheyem pripremao novu saradnju za FX, seriju REDEEMER po romanu THE CHURCHGOER Patricka Colemana. Coleman je pre ovog romana napisao zbirku poezije i nije tipičan pisac krimića, pa tako ni THE CHURCHGOER nije tipičan krimić.

Reč je o kalifornijskom noiru, smeštenom u Oceanside i okolinu San Diega (dobra vest za one kojima već nedostaje ANIMAL KINGDOM) ali bitno drugačiji i od Winslowa koji je okrenut klasičnijem žanrovskom izrazu a svakako od Pynchona kog zanima nešto skroz drugačije unutar konvencije krimića.

Colemanov roman na nivou priče ide linijom klasičnog noira, sa junakom kog život nije mazio - ovog puta reč je o traumatizovanom bivšem evangelističkom pastoru koji je napustio svog megachurch, razočarao se u veru, pošao putem alkoholizma, rasturio porodicu i sad je usamljeni i rezignirani noćni čuvar. Njegov život dobija novi impuls kada upoznaje intrigantnu devojku, lutalicu koja se sporadično pojavljuje u njegovom životu a onda nestaje istog dana kada na njegovom poslu dolazi do provale i pogibije njegovog kolege.

Otpušten s posla, dodatno traumatizovanim ovim događajima kreće da je traži, i usput shvata da će ponovo morati da uže u svet evangelizma koji (kao što smo isto recimo videli u ANIMAL KINGDOMu) veoma ozbiljan spiritualni fenomen ali i biznis u ovom delu Kalifornije.

Colemanu je na prvom mestu studija karaktera, junakove opservacije o veri, sudbini, životu, prirodi i društu pa tek onda noir zaplet. Međutim, žanrovsku okosnicu koristi dosta vešto kao okosnicu za igradnju svog romana, i nesvesno pravi rukopis koji je na kraju jači kao krimić nego kao psihološka studija što mu je bila inicijalna namera.

Misterija koja se razotkriva u ovom svetu u kom su fatalne žene koje bude opsesiju, moćni muškarci koji drže ključeve tajni i očajnici uhvaćeni između njih ista je kao i oni, druga��ija nego što izgleda ali ne previše.

U tom smislu, najveće odstupanje od konvencije žanra jeste da na kraju priče nemamo konvencionalnog krivca, ne samo u pogledu kazne nego i zločina. Svi su ponešto krivi, svako na neki zanimljiv način.

Uprkos tome što je roman jači u nekim aspektima koje Coleman nije birao kao osnovni adut, reč je o zanimljivom ostvarenju koje zaslužuje pažnju ljubitelja i poznavalaca.

[Sofia Singeis · Rating 2 out of 5]

You know what, this was not my cup of tea. I just couldn’t relate to any character or feel like the plot was authentic/credible. I don’t know, it just didn’t really entertain me and I found myself forcing to get to the end for the sake of finishing this book and being able to pick up another

However, this is my opinion and what doesn’t work for me can work for others so if you’re interested in giving it a try I’d say go for it

[Catherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a weird book. The exploration of the abuses of mega churches was an enticing plot device (and entirely true), but the use of lesbians and their suffering in these spaces seemed somewhat intrusive of the real pain actual religious lgbt people face trying to navigate the space of being lgbt and religious.

[Ray · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were several reasons The Churchgoer didn't really grab me. First of all, I didn't feel a connection with the main character, not finding him likable at all. Then I thought the book could have been shortened appreciably, and finally, because I had trouble buying into the general premise of the story.  
The main character, a former pastor named Mark Haines, gradually lost his faith, left his church, and turned against religion. His marriage had failed, he is a recovering addict, and barely holds onto a job as a security guard. His grown daughter has turned against him, and been completely out of his life for years. His daughter won't so much as talk to him, let him see his grandson, nor even share her son's name with him.  Perhaps because all these things are going wrong in his life, Haines seems to loose patience with people far too easily, which makes him more unlikable to me.   

I also thought the story would have moved along much better if it was shortened appreciably.  Before any action Haines would take or any choice he would make, his every thought, consideration and recollection seemed to be needlessly described, adding to the length of the book without adding interest. 

And lastly, I thought much of the story itself seemed improbable.  Haines has a chance encounter with a teenage girl (Emily) who was planning on hitchhiking from Southern California to Seattle. After this very short meeting with the girl, Mark developed an unusual and unfathomable interest in her.  He knew nothing about the girl, including her name or where she lived, yet somehow develops an obsessive interest in finding her again after this single brief encounter. 
After another subsequent chance encounter with her, he learns that she just moved out of her "bad" boyfriend's house, and has no place to stay. He allows her to stay at his house, but within a few days, she leaves without a word.  Now he's really obsessed with finding her again, supposedly to "make sure she's all right". In the course of trying to find her, he roughs up a young man who he believes might know something of her whereabouts, but doesn't learn much.  Then, by chance, Haines runs into a still-active minister from his old church, another guy that Mark doesn't like. But it happens that this former acquaintance of his just happened to know something about another former church member, named Sammy, who previously worked with Mark when he was still a church minister. As it ends up, Sammy just happens to be the name of the "bad" ex-boyfriend of Emily, the girl Mark is searching for.  Haines suspects that the this Sammy must be the same Sammy that was Emily's old boyfriend. Haines finds out where Sammy lives, only to find that he's into drugs and porn. Police just happen to raid Sammy's house while Haines is visiting, and he gets himself arrested during the raid.  After Mark is released by the police without being charged, he still can't find the girl. But Haines guesses that he knows where Emily may have been a church member before she became a runaway. Still not knowing for sure who he's asking about, Haines visits the girl's old church, pretending to be a police officer. He learns a little more about a runaway girl matching Emily's description, and he then breaks into that church minister's house to get even more information. It ends up that Emily and the minister's daughter were in a lesbian relationship, ending when the minister found out. Haines then he breaks into the minister's house, and roughs him up because Haines feels the minister should have helped the girl more. All too far fetched to me, and didn't really keep me interested.

[David Agranoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know how I never had this book on my radar, but it was the announcement that FX had bought the rights and attached True Detective creator Nik Pizzolatto to run the show. While it is getting a new name "Redeemer" it will star Matthew McConaughy as a far more handsome version of the lead Mark Haines than I had in my head. Not to shabby for a debut novel. I was already interested in those powerful storytellers involved but then I saw that the author was from here in San Diego, but there is more. It takes place here in San Diego, and to put a cherry on my interest The author got his MFA in my freaking hometown at Indiana University. Maybe he and I should catch an IU basketball game together? ha-ha.

Ok, I love noir and I have been in old pulp sci-fi land because of the podcast for months so it seemed to be a good time to get into a so-cal murder mystery. The story of Mark Haines a security guard from the North County San Diego city of Oceanside. It is an interesting place that is better explained in the book than I could possibly do justice here. Mark has a couple mysteries in his life, one is the hitchhiker he took in she seems to be connected to his former church and the other is his co-worker who is murder right next to him.

Oh yeah, that is important Mark is an ex-pastor, ex-dad turned surf bum. He is not an ex-cop or down on his luck detective but he tries hard to be one when these mysteries come into his life. Much of the novel is focused on this reluctant detective that is forced to look at the spiritual path he walked away from. While there were times that it reminded me of two other San Diego surfer mysteries the FX show Terriers and Don Winslow's early novel Dawn Patrol. Since I loved both of those that is not shade but a compliment.

As a San Diegan I liked seeing the city reflected in this character's eyes. That is indeed the real spine of this novel is Mark. ultimately I feel this novel is a character piece. He wasn't happy to walk away from his church, family, and reputation. The mystery is interesting but honestly, I was more interested in how everything affected Mark. The answers were secondary to me, I wanted to know Mark better as I turned pages.

The writing is strong and the characters rich, the locations were detailed and well-drawn through the character lens. If there is a negative to be was the ending well a little drawn out. There was a long time when the character was stuck underground in a bunker, and I thought that went on a little long. I think some will complain about a slow pace but I was drawn in right away. I thought the setting and the characters provided plenty of hooks.

For a book that has a fair bit of religious cynicism, I think the anti-religious aspects were not as thick as I expected. Some reviewers consider this book to be anti-religion I think that it is not preachy myself. Most important it is a California noir with strong characters and Patrick Coleman is a writer to watch!

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Creepy older guy meets a 20-ish girl, wants her in a sexual way, ewww, spends the rest of the book trying to convince himself/the reader that he just wants to "help" her because she reminds him of his estranged daughter (he was a terrible dad who abandoned his family and his responsibilities and now his daughter wants nothing to do with him; I wouldn't either).

Also, the author, errr, I mean, the creepy older guy (Haines) seems bitter and mad at the world.

He can't decide if he hates G-d or doesn't believe in Him. But he doesn't seem to realize that when he complains about and rails against Him, he has recently said that He can't possibly exist. Well, umm, Haines, which is it? How can you be mad at Someone who isn't real? And if He isn't real and nothing happens after we die, how can you be so sure your sister Ellen is in hell for eternity? Who sent her there? And how could there be such a place?

I finished this so I could give it a fair review. I liked Haines and the story less and less as the book went on. It's not hard to see why he's a loner who has burned all his bridges and basically has no one left in his life. He's pretty self-centered and insufferable. I was hoping he would somehow redeem himself at the end, but even he is too sorry for that kind of resolution. Not surprising.

NOT recommended.

[James Lloyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Patrick Coleman's, 'The Churchgoer' is an extremely well written 'Noir' that explores the protagonist's internal tug of war between a previous loose-fitting religious conviction and the path that leads to his ultimate hostility towards it. In spite of its dark and conventional trappings, at the center of the story is his obsession over a search for a young female stranger whose disappearance he suspects is tied to the death of a co-worker, as well as the exploitation of the same young woman by a former protege' in the church and a mega-church pastor who epitomizes what he despises most about what he has left behind. Despite its departure from what I believe to be spiritual truths, and how the author dabbles in blasphemous references at times, it is a well crafted novel written in exquisite prose. It was entertaining and thought provoking, and kept me turning the pages..

[Sipovic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Книга Патрика Колмана - классический нуар, написанный крепким языком и под очевидным вдохновением от Чендлера. К сожалению автор допустил типичную ошибку новичка, засунув в историю слишком много: тут и непростой главный герой с багажом эмоциональных проблем размером с небоскрёб, и церковные разборки , и наркоторговля. Всё это соединено в меру технично, но при этом один из элементов постоянно кажется излишним.
Для дебюта получилось вполне достойно, правда и запоминающегося в "Прихожанине" совсем немного, разве что постоянные разъёбы религии от героя - бывшего священника. При этом деус экс машина выручает его несчётное количество раз, но в этом, я так понимаю, и шутка.

[Robin Knabel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! The main character drew me in... I loved the dark and the light... the author kept me guessing until the very end! Interesting characters and a unique story idea! Bravo to Patrick Coleman! I can't wait to see your next book!!!

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good read

I wasn’t sure I was going to like this book, but ended up loving it. Noir fiction about a loner down on his luck solving a crime. What is not to like? Very well written...