Overview

John Reimer, minister of Lakeview Mennonite Church in Chicago, has survived several attempts on his life while looking into a gruesome killing at North Pond. He has also just lost his spouse. Everyone from district minister Waldo Wedel to Lakeview's church moderator Nancy Huefflinger thinks they know what is best for John. What he can't deny is that his extracurricular activities and tendency to question authority, including that of cops and aldermen, has both friends and detractors worried. A committee sends John into bucolic exile in central Kansas. It's an enforced sabbatical, and John sees it as coercion. As it turns out, Marion Hills, located on the edge of the Flint Hills, is about to have its peaceful mask rudely torn off. Marion Hills is an affluent Mennonite community, comfortable, slightly decadent, maybe borderline Peyton Place. Its economic power, industrial behemoth Halston Industries, has diversified into agricultural technology and aerospace. After the mysterious death of one of the community's most affluent citizens, a private equity mogul close to John's own family, John once again finds himself sucked into a whirling maelstrom of intrigue--and forced to reckon with his own character, his faith, and a place he thought he knew.

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Reviews

""Even better than Unpardonable Sins, Prodigal Sons takes readers on a twisting journey through some of the darker recesses of Mennonite community. David Saul Bergman's hero, minister John Reimer, is a compelling protagonist--a good man struggling to move beyond the sorrows of his past and to make sense of a world where the claims of faith do battle with, and sometimes conceal, crude desires and bitter resentments. Full of vivid characters, insidious plots, and witty dialogue, Prodigal Sons is a briskly entertaining story and a rich exploration of the trials of family, community, and spiritual belief. A terrific spin on the noir tradition!"" --Sean McCann, author of Gumshoe America: Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction and the Rise and Fall of New Deal Liberalism ""At the outset, Prodigal Sons is a deceptively gentle, lightly satirical narrative, but one that steadily burrows into the seamy noir detail of small-town Mennonite life in Kansas. It also gives us the shadow side of Chicago preacher and sleuth, John Reimer. Something of a wayward son himself, Reimer is forced to confront his own unpredictable inclinations. In this gripping sequel to Unpardonable Sins, he solves a crime by using, and living, an inside-out prodigal son myth."" --Armin Wiebe, author of Murder in Gutenthal ""Prodigal Sons finds Mennonite preacher John Reimer back home in Kansas, sent there on sabbatical both to fill a pulpit vacancy and find his balance after the violence he recently encountered in Chicago. And here the complicated Mennonite community at the edge of the Flint Hills opens its arms: As he enters into his pastoral duties, Reimer's parishioners lavish him with casseroles, trust his guidance, offer up stories, and drag him right back into danger. This second novel resonates like a bell: with deep and thoughtful theological notes as well as higher reverberations that hint at secrets yet to be told. The writing is confident, detailed, and compelling, and the reader begins to know John Reimer not only as a man who can unravel a mystery, but as someone who has negotiated church politics, faced down his fears, endured unspeakable personal pain--and remained somehow true. Read this book not only for the crime-solving, but also for the rich descriptions of the tallgrass prairie, complex family dynamics, and astounding meals."" --Patti White, author of Particularly Dangerous Situation ""John Reimer, Renaissance pastor and sleuth, returns to his Kansas Mennonite roots during a 'sabbatical exile' from his Chicago church. No surprise that his first official visit is the sheriff's office in this absorbing depiction of what most seminaries don't teach. You'll want a front-row seat to this compelling crime novel that straddles the realms of faith and felony."" --Wally Kroeker, Former Editor, The Marketplace

Author Information

David Saul Bergman is the pen name of Daniel Born, a writer and editor based in Chicago. He is author of The Birth of Liberal Guilt in the English Novel, coauthor of Unpardonable Sins (2021), and editor of The Essential Dale Suderman Reader (2024). A former vice president at the Great Books Foundation, he holds a PhD from the City University of New York and taught college English for forty years. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, and Literature & Theology.

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