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Sister Anne has devoted her entire religious life to caring for those most in need, those with the least resources. When she is brutally murdered, the most obvious solution to the case would seem to rest with one of those she served – perhaps someone who didn’t appreciate the help, one of the mentally ill, the husband of a battered woman, a drug abuser in search of money. Jason Wade doesn’t buy the easy solution. Nobody wants to really listen to Jason, particularly his bosses at The Seattle Mirror. They have demoted him to being the only reporter on the night shift of the police beat. Cassie Appleton had lied when caught in a major error, and blamed Jason for her mistake. This demotion has shaken Jason’s faith in himself and his abilities as a reporter. While determined to get to the bottom of Sister Anne’s death, he is constantly second-guessing his decisions, fearful that one more mistake will get him fired. It doesn’t help that his ex-cop father, a recovering alcoholic, chooses to call on Jason for help in the middle of all the excitement. Jason has a certain amount of guilt connected to his relationship with his dad. Jason looks into Sister Anne’s past, convinced that this has more bearing on her murder than her work. This research takes him places he would never have imagined, and causes him to tap resources and strengths he hasn’t used in a while. It also brings him into conflict with his bosses at The Mirror, as well as requiring him to place his father’s claims upon his time on a back burner. This is Mofina’s seventh book. He knows how to tell a story, how to create characters that demand some reaction from the reader, how to make the setting real and yet unobtrusive. The characters in A PERFECT GRAVE aren’t always the people one would like them to be, but life is like that. Wade’s self-doubt wears on one after a while, but not enough to make him totally unbelievable – just annoying. The Seattle that Mofina uses as his setting isn’t one that most tourists would want to encounter, but it’s no less real for that. A PERFECT GRAVE isn’t a perfect mystery, but it’s worth reading if a good story is what one has in mind.
Reviewed by P. J. Coldren, September 2007
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