Innocent Blood: A John Jordan Mystery

Lister provides a plausible backstory for his unusual clergyman sleuth in the seventh John Jordan mystery (after 2014’s Rivers to Blood), a prequel. When Jordan was 12, in 1980, he encountered Wayne Williams, the man who would be publicly identified as the Atlanta Child Murderer, at a video arcade. Jordan stood up to the creepy Williams, forcing him to leave another child alone. That meeting led to an obsession with the case that didn’t diminish after Williams’s arrest. Instead, Jordan devoted himself to answering the unresolved issues arising from the holes in the prosecution’s case, including whether Williams was actually guilty of some or all of the killings of other African-American children. After high school, Jordan moves to Atlanta, where he focuses on the murder of a boy who wasn’t on the official list of Williams’s victims. Lister gives fair clues for the surprise solution, thus combining a compelling account of his hero’s spiritual struggle with a top-notch whodunit. [em]Agent: Amy Moore-Benson, AMB Literary Management. (May) [/em]