After the Service places an intelligent and capable, but otherwise totally unprepared, church intern into a whirlwind adventure as he tries to solve the mystery of a murder that takes place at his church.

Unlike some book reviews, there will be no spoilers in this review. The following will have to suffice: there are a couple of very satisfying and entertaining plot twists, just as one expects in a good mystery. Goddard lays the groundwork necessary for the reader to piece things together on his/her own, but if you guess the ending before it is revealed then you are a more savvy reader than I am.

Goddard does a good job writing about things that he knows (Baptist churches, student newspapers, college life, entertaining dorm-mates, etc). The result is a setting and characters that are very believable, even down to the entertainingly awkward romance. This is certainly the strong point of the book. Many authors can believably portray a gritty police detective, but how many can believably portray the aftermath of a murder on a church body?

As a side note, it is not often that I read a book where the romance has both an authentic feel to it, and is entertaining. Goddard pulls it off by not trying to get into the head of his female characters, instead he writes the romance entirely from the perspective of his hapless protagonist.

So anyway. Enough of my thoughts. If you are into reading things on your laptop or electronic book gadget, you can buy the book for a bargain price in electronic format. I however, think this one is worth the few extra bucks for the print edition.