A Shattered Lens – Layton Green, 2019.  4/5

There aren’t a lot of murders in small Creekville, North Carolina, so when star high-school football player and all-around good kid David Stratton is found shot to death in the woods, the case goes to Detective Joe “Preach” Everson.

We first met Preach in Written in Blood. Once a hometown boy, Preach spent years working homicides in Atlanta. Now he’s returned to Creekville, despite knowing intrinsically that you can’t go home again.

Life experiences have changed him: he’s not a complete outsider, but he’s no longer a local. His mindset sets him apart from the other small-town cops. An introspective, intelligent, sensitive badass, Preach is secure in his identity. At least, until this case. The murdered boy’s mother, Claire, is an old high-school flame, and she sparks a new desire. She’s beautiful, alluring, and a prime suspect. She also triggers an emotional rift between Preach and his county-prosecutor girlfriend, Ari.

As Preach digs into the case, interviewing David’s friends and family, memories from his youth threaten to overwhelm him. He, and others, question his objectivity. Complicating things further is a tenuous and connection between David’s murder and Ari’s case involving a ruthlessly brilliant drug lord.

But someone else was in those woods on the night of the murder: Blue, a teenager from the trailer park on the wrong side of town. With big dreams and a stolen camera, she was out filming her breakthrough opus. Now, Blue holds the key to the case, and the murderer knows it.

A Shattered Lens is a crackerjack mystery. We’ve got compelling suspects in Claire’s rich boyfriend, David’s disturbingly sensual teacher, and others. We’re successfully misdirected by some clever red herrings. Thanks to the narrative perspective switching between Preach and Ari and Blue, our tension levels stay pegged. Across the board, the characters come into their own more completely in this book. Even the bad guys have souls, winning a whisper of our empathy.

But A Shattered Lens succeeds as more than a tightly plotted detective novel. Woven beautifully and uncompromisingly into the mystery is a poignant reflection on the nature of relationships. The underlying message is bittersweet: embrace those relationships while you can. You don’t know what you have until it’s gone. As Preach observes, only love combats the “transcendental sadness” that resides deep within us all.

A Shattered Lens is an absorbing read that will content your inner detective and leave your inner philosopher solemnly self-reflective. In a good way. I look forward to Preach’s next case.

Full disclosure, here: I received a publisher’s copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.