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Death Comes for the Deconstructionist
Winner:Christianity Today Book Award -Fiction (2016)
Jon Mote--grad school dropout and serial failure--has been hired to investigate the murder of his erstwhile mentor, Richard Pratt, a star in the firmament of literary theory. Feeling unequal to the task, Mote skitters on the edge of madness, trying to stifle the increasingly threatening voices in his head. His only source of hope is the dogged love of his developmentally disabled sister, Judy, who serves as cheerleader, critic, and moral compass. Death Comes for the Deconstructionist follows Mote and his sister through the streets and neighborhoods of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota--from crime scenes to the halls of academe. Mote's investigation uncovers a series of suspects--including the victim's wife, mistress, and intellectual rivals. Along the way he stumbles onto Pratt's terrible secret, one that prompts the discovery of an equally dark mystery from his own past. These revelations hasten Mote's descent into darkness, putting both him and Judy at grave risk. Death Comes for the Deconstructionist is a tragicomic mystery, a detective story that is at once suspenseful, provocative, and emotionally resonant. It asks not only whodunit but whether truth is ultimately something we create rather than discover.
Book Details
- Publisher: Slant Books
- Publish Date: Jan 5th, 2015
- Pages: 206
- Language: English
- Edition: undefined - undefined
- Dimensions: 9.10in - 6.30in - 1.00in - 1.05lb
- EAN: 9781625649317
- Categories: • General
About the Author
Taylor, Daniel: - Daniel Taylor is the author of eleven books, including The Myth of Certainty, Letters to My Children, Tell Me A Story, Creating a Spiritual Legacy, The Skeptical Believer: Telling Stories to Your Inner Atheist, and, most recently, Death Comes for the Deconstructionist. He speaks frequently on a variety of topics. Dr. Taylor is married and the father of four adult children. Website: www.WordTaylor.com
Praise for this book
Daniel Taylor blends a passion for theology, civil rights, and the saving grace of story in a mystery involving an unlikely pair of underdog investigators--the psychologically broken Jon Mote and his ever hopeful, developmentally challenged older sister, Judy. Known primarily for his nonfiction books, Taylor displays the natural skills of a crime writer in his debut novel set in the world of academia. His plot begins conventionally, but eventually evolves into something much deeper. Death Comes for the Deconstructionist is a fascinating exploration of what is ultimately good and true, a perfect choice for Slant's first offering in the detective genre.
--Naomi Hirahara, Edgar Award-winning author of the Mas Arai and Officer Ellie Rush mysteries This whodunit from Dan Taylor is a cause for celebration. His Jon Mote rivals Harry Bosch, and Taylor's ventures into literature, religion, and notions of progress shine, challenge, and stun. With his remarkable sidekick, Judy, Jon Mote, an expert on things he wished he didn't know, is not simply looking into a puzzling death. He is exploring his own odds of finding transformative life. Great books are those that force readers to reexamine the very ground on which they stand. Death Comes for the Deconstructionist is such a book--a luminous performance.
--Dale Brown, Director of Buechner Institute In Death Comes for the Deconstructionist, Daniel Taylor has written not only a highly engaging murder mystery but also a metaphysical page-turner--a strange and wonderful cross between Walker Percy and G. K. Chesterton. His oddly reluctant Sherlock Holmes is accompanied by the most unusual and heartwarming Watson in my reading experience.
--Paul J. Willis, author of The Alpine Tales Jon Mote--by his own admission a clueless detective--is asked to solve the murder of a renowned English professor. Despite his bumbling efforts he discovers truth, not only concerning the murder but, more profoundly, concerning himself and his painful past. This witty, tragicomic novel slices a scalpel into the heart of the modern university and lays bare the intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of its reigning ideologies.
--Hugh Cook, author of Heron River One part academic satire, one part mystery, and one part theological investigation, this pleasingly disorienting novel packs a wicked punch. Like life itself, Daniel Taylor gives us a story in which all sorts of incongruous elements are jumbled together. (Reality is not fastidious.) But is there--could there be--a pattern nonetheless, a great design amid all the confusion?
--John Wilson, Editor, Books & Culture
--Naomi Hirahara, Edgar Award-winning author of the Mas Arai and Officer Ellie Rush mysteries This whodunit from Dan Taylor is a cause for celebration. His Jon Mote rivals Harry Bosch, and Taylor's ventures into literature, religion, and notions of progress shine, challenge, and stun. With his remarkable sidekick, Judy, Jon Mote, an expert on things he wished he didn't know, is not simply looking into a puzzling death. He is exploring his own odds of finding transformative life. Great books are those that force readers to reexamine the very ground on which they stand. Death Comes for the Deconstructionist is such a book--a luminous performance.
--Dale Brown, Director of Buechner Institute In Death Comes for the Deconstructionist, Daniel Taylor has written not only a highly engaging murder mystery but also a metaphysical page-turner--a strange and wonderful cross between Walker Percy and G. K. Chesterton. His oddly reluctant Sherlock Holmes is accompanied by the most unusual and heartwarming Watson in my reading experience.
--Paul J. Willis, author of The Alpine Tales Jon Mote--by his own admission a clueless detective--is asked to solve the murder of a renowned English professor. Despite his bumbling efforts he discovers truth, not only concerning the murder but, more profoundly, concerning himself and his painful past. This witty, tragicomic novel slices a scalpel into the heart of the modern university and lays bare the intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of its reigning ideologies.
--Hugh Cook, author of Heron River One part academic satire, one part mystery, and one part theological investigation, this pleasingly disorienting novel packs a wicked punch. Like life itself, Daniel Taylor gives us a story in which all sorts of incongruous elements are jumbled together. (Reality is not fastidious.) But is there--could there be--a pattern nonetheless, a great design amid all the confusion?
--John Wilson, Editor, Books & Culture