Michael Lister: a bright talent with a bloody tale

“The Body and the Blood,” by Michael Lister. Five Star. 330 pages. $25.95
BY PHILIP K. JASON Special to Florida Weekly

Do you enjoy mysteries with religious themes and characters? Forget Father Dowling. Forget Rabbi Small. Catch up with Michael Lister’s “John Jordan Mystery” series.

A former policeman now working as a prison chaplain in Florida’s panhandle, John Jordan wrestles with the conflict of justice and mercy on the one hand, and justice and vengeance on the other. Mr. Lister’s Jordan becomes a flawed everyman whose determination to become a better person and a spiritual counselor to others is constantly tested as he struggles to balance the demands of his chaplaincy with his work as a crime investigator.

In “The Body and the Blood,” the latest book in this series, something that seems completely impossible has happened at the Potter Correctional Institution: Justin Menge, an inmate just short of being paroled, is murdered inside his locked cell. Most peculiarly, the pool of blood spreading under the cell door is no longer in proximity to the bloodless corpse lying on the cot — a cot whose sheets are almost clean.

How can this have happened in a prison with multiple levels of security? And what does it mean that the danger to Menge had been suggested in two different ways? First, a sister who hasn’t seen him in years voiced concern that Menge might be in danger. Second, a mysterious handout appeared imitating an announcement for a prison worship service, but with wording that warned of such a crime.

While Jordan and the state prison system’s chief investigator, Tom Daniels, explore the locked door part of the mystery, they come up with a variety of suspects on the basis of motive — perhaps too many plausible suspects for a jury to find anyone guilty “beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

Daniels has a vested interest in the case because Menge was about to testify against Juan Martinez, an escaped and recaptured convict who raped Daniels’ wife. John Jordan has a complex relationship with vengeanceminded Daniels in that Jordan is working hard to rebuild his fractured marriage to Daniels’ daughter, Susan.

Suspicion falls on corrupt prison guards, on a female prison psychologist for whom records show improper time markers for entering and leaving Menge’s section of the prison, and on another prisoner, Chris Sobel — known to be Menge’s boyfriend. Since Sobel and Menge are very similar in appearance, it even seems possible that they might have switched identities at some point or been mistaken for one another, further confusing the permutations of motive.

As the investigation plot twists and turns, so does the story of John Jordan and Susan, complicated now by two additional factors. Susan, who has become uncharacteristically seductive, reveals that she is pregnant, a piece of news for which John is not prepared. Still, he is committed to making the best of the obligations he has taken upon himself. This means, however, that he must put an end to his relationship with Anna, a beautiful colleague on the prison staff who has thoroughly won his heart.

In both Jordan’s professional and personal life, he feels a current of failure undermining his commitment to the moral high road. He feels himself slipping away from faith and from the standards he had set for himself.

Mr. Lister’s sensitive, convincing development of this side of Jordan’s character is one of the more engaging and original features of “The Body and the Blood” and of the entire John Jordan series. The author keeps the reader sympathetic while Jordan struggles on to unexpected outcomes in the overlapping personal and professional sides of his life. The denouement of the novel is provocative and potent.

Another original aspect of this series is Mr. Lister’s gritty, disturbing portrait of life inside a large, rural penitentiary. His experiences as a chaplain in prisons similar to the imaginary Potter Correctional Institution allow him to portray the environment and dynamics of this microcosm with authenticity and power.

Not far from Panama City is a small town named Wewahitchka where Mr. Lister makes his home. It is also the home of the Gulf Correctional Institution. You do the math. Mr. Lister does the literature. And he does it very, very well. 

— See www.michaellister.com for more on this highly original talent.

An Amazing Year for Author Michael Lister

The past 12 months have been fruitful ones for Michael Lister.

The author has seen the release of five books he either wrote, edited or to which he contributed as well as a review of his latest novel in the prestigious Publisher’s Weekly and a Florida Book Award.

First, there was the release late last year of Double Exposure, a nourish thriller set in the swamps of the Apalachicola National Forest. Lister also wrote a screenplay of the novel, the play staged by the Gulf Coast Community College Theater Department.

Double Exposure also received a Florida Book Award and has been translated into several languages, including German.

Thunder Beach, a mystery set against the backdrop of the annual gathering in Panama City Beach followed as did Delta Blues, an anthology of crime stories set in the Mississippi delta and having a taste of the blues.

Lister contributed a story to Delta Blues, which included an introduction by actor Morgan Freeman. The launch party, which Lister attended, was held at Freeman’s home in Mississippi.

Florida Heat Wave, a crime fiction anthology Lister edited, was released a few months ago and just out is Body and the Blood, the third in the series of novels Lister has written involving the character John Jordan, a chaplain and detective.

“For all to happen in one year is staggering to me,” Lister said. “I’m so grateful to be in print and to get the feedback from readers and the reviews that I have had. It’s been an incredible year and I am so grateful.”

Lister has paid his dues.

He started on the John Jordan series in 1994, the idea for the series seeping into his gray matter while he was in training to become a prison chaplain, which Lister was for more than seven years.

“I liked the idea of a clerical detective,” Lister said, noting that the genre dates back centuries. “But there has never been one in hard-boiled detective form.”

After living with the characters of the series for some 16 years, they have become old friends that he greets regularly when he sits down each morning at the keyboard to begin his daily regimen of writing.

“No question these characters are real people to me,” Lister said. “They are organic. They have evolved. I try to honor those characters when I write.

“If I wake up in the morning and I’m anxious to get to the keyboard to see what happens next, I think the reader will have the same feeling of wanting to turn the page. It really takes over. There is no set time I write, but it really does take over.”

Lister said he is happy with where John Jordan is at this point in the series and he is as a writer, believing the Body and the Blood represents growth for character and author.

“It is by far the best book of the series,” Lister said.

Getting to Jordan to the page is one thing, securing the character a place in a published book is quite another.

Lister said the already tough task of getting vision to print is even tougher in difficult economic times. Publishing houses see hundreds of titles each year but will publish just a minute fraction of those submissions.

“It is harder now,” Lister said. “Part of the reason I’ve had so many books come out this year is because I’ve had to secure a different publisher for each book. I have had three different publishers for each of the John Jordan books.”

The latest is being published by 5-Star Publishers, part of large media company.

On the flip side are rewards such as the review in Publisher’s Weekly, not an easy thing to secure for any rising writer.

“It is a big deal,” Lister said. “It made me feel so good. Someone noticed that this book (Body and the Blood) is something good and unique.

“It is more than entertainment to me. It is art.”

And the past 12 months have showcased the variety of that art.

* The Gulf County Chamber of Commerce will hold a book launch party for The Body and the Blood during the monthly Business after Hours at 5 p.m. ET on Thursday, Oct. 21

from The Star by Tim Croft

Lister Succeeds in The Body and the Blood

Florida writer Michael Lister returns in his new novel to the life of troubled prison chaplain John Jordan. When we encounter Jordan in The Body and the Blood (Five Star), he has been clean and sober for some time and is even reconciling with his estranged wife, Susan. That’s a good thing, since Susan’s father, Tom Daniels, is a senior official at the Potter Correctional Institution, where Jordan works.

In Chaplain Jordan, Lister paints a vivid portrait of a man who has conquered his addiction, but still has to face the causes of it. The protagonist’s temper occasionally flairs, and at one point, he slugs an inmate. It the same raw nerves that once drove Jordan to drink that now threaten to undo all the progress he’s made.

Jordan, by the way, isn’t your conventional clergyman. Not only does he refer to God as “She,” even in conversations with the prison’s part-time Catholic priest, but his father is the Potter County sheriff, and Jordan himself is a former deputy. So his investigation of Menge’s death isn’t the work of an amateur sleuth blundering haplessly into a crime. Daniels wants his son-in-law along ostensibly because Jordan is still, at heart, a cop, yet the inmates have come to trust him.

Lister puts a lot of coincidences into The Body and the Blood that could have derailed it in the hands of a lesser author. Fortunately, Lister handles them well. The story is not as edgy as his most recent Tyrus Books offering, Thunder Beach (2010). Instead, it’s comfortable, like an entry in a series that’s been around awhile and is more interested in keeping its fans than grabbing new ones. Still, Lister is one of the better writers working today. He doesn’t skimp on story development or the consequences of actions. Regular characters change and fall apart. And where this tale is at its best is in Jordan’s interactions with prison inmates. Some profess a disappointment when the chaplain tells them he’s not superior to them, that he struggles to be a better person every day in just the same way they do. What really disappoints them, though, and what the author portrays best, is how Jordan fails as often as he succeeds.

Fortunately for us, in this book, Lister succeeds. ◊

by Jim Winter from January Magazine

Reading THE BODY AND THE BLOOD "akin to looking at an Escher piece"

The Body and the Blood by Michael Lister
Review by Jen Forbus

First line: "'How much does prison change a man?'"

John Jordan is the prison chaplain in Florida's Potter Correctional Institution and he's recently discovered that his ex-wife isn't actually his ex-wife. The papers for their divorce years ago were never finalized and they are in fact still married. A situation that has caused the couple to give their marriage another try. They're older, wiser and maybe they can get it right this time. The Jordans' reconciliation makes John's life a bit easier when he finds himself investigating a puzzling inmate murder with his father-in-law, Tom Daniels. While they are standing in the Protective Management wing observing the Catholic Mass, a man locked in his cell in that wing is murdered. There is no evidence of anyone entering or leaving. Neither John nor Tom saw anything, yet the man is dead in his cell and most definitely murdered. The suspects begin to mount as John tries to navigate the investigation, his faith, and the reconciliation with his wife.

THE BODY AND THE BLOOD is Michael Lister's fourth book in the John Jordan Mystery series. His protagonist puts a unique spin on the investigator role and Lister adds the dimension of Jordan's faith to the dynamics. His faith, however, shouldn't be confused with religion. Jordan's faith has to do with his overreaching belief in himself, what is right and good, his relationship with others and his spiritual balance. The Jordan novels have never been preachy and THE BODY AND THE BLOOD follows suit. Instead, they focus on the human-ness of the protagonist and the complexity of the plots.

Lister's own experience as a prison chaplain lends to the authenticity of the setting as well as the characters. THE BODY AND THE BLOOD is narrated by Jordan so the reader sees the inmates as Jordan sees them. Jordan's best friend, Merrill Monroe also features prominently in THE BODY AND THE BLOOD. A correctional officer in the same prison, Merrill assists Jordan's investigation. Merrill is a black man who puts stereotypes through the wringer by using them to his advantage or just as easily shattering all notions of them. He mocks the very ignorance that feeds the stereotype. That's Lister's style of character development: examining the man from inside out.

Merrill also provides a good deal of the humor in this series. The dialogue is clean and Merrill's is peppered with sarcasm and wit.

The plot of THE BODY AND THE BLOOD is probably among Lister's strongest. There are suspects galore. Lister doles out clues and the reader will recognize that they are clues but he's equally as generous with his red herrings. And the clues often lead the reader in a direction other than the solution. Reading this book is akin to looking at an Escher piece. It works, but how?

The BODY AND THE BLOOD is another great effort from Micheal Lister in the John Jordan Mystery series. This is a series I look forward to and Lister continues to deliver.

THE BODY AND THE BLOOD is available in hardcover from Five Star Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-59414-893-4).

Rave Reviews for THE BODY AND THE BLOOD

THE BODY AND THE BLOOD, the new John Jordan Mystery is receiving rave reviews. Listen to what people are saying:

In a Starred Review, Publisher's Weekly calls THE BODY AND THE BLOOD "superior" and says "A plausible resolution concludes this first-rate locked-room mystery."

Harriet Klausner says, "With a fabulous late twist, readers will fully relish Chaplain Jordon's investigation."

Ellery Queen Magazine calls it "solidly contemporary, but delightfully retro" and says, "Lister is one of the most individual and talented newer writers on the crime-fiction scene, with vivid style, ready wit, and a marriage of plot and theme."

Michael Connelly says, "Michael Lister may be the author of the most unique series running in mystery fiction. The Body and the Blood proves that once again. It crackles with tension and authenticity."

Lisa Unger calls it, "Eerie and cinematic, The Body and The Blood is a classic whodunit with thoroughly modern sensibilities. John Jordan manages to be deeply flawed yet utterly appealing. Lister, with his gift for exploring the nuances of human relationships, creates a vivid and multi-faceted supporting cast, each character finely-wrought, each portrayal unflinching. Suspenseful, complex and original, The Body and The Blood is a page-turner with a soul."

Michael Lister Individual and Talented

Ellery Queen Magazine review of THE BODY AND THE BLOOD
By Jon L. Breen
*** Michael Lister: The Body and the Blood, Five Star, $25.95. Florida prison chaplain and consulting detective John Jordan, a complex man of God who can be as violent as Mike Hammer (well, almost), investigates impossible murder in a locked and constantly observed cell. Meanwhile, he attempts reconciliation with his estranged wife even while yearning for his platonic girlfriend. The novel is solidly contemporary in its determination to pile more and more miseries on the hero but delightfully retro in its classical puzzle plotting, which will appeal to fans of John Dickson Carr, Edward D. Hoch, and other locked-room masters. Lister is one of the most individual and talented newer writers on the crime-fiction scene, with vivid style, ready wit, and a marriage of plot and theme.

A Great Locked Cell Mystery

Recovering alcoholic John Jordan is the prison chaplain at the Potter Correctional Institution, a place that affirms one of Florida's strongest growth industries is filing away convicts. One section of the prison is the Protective Management Unit, which houses those inmates who would not survive within the general populace. John is concerned over a note he found that states someone will be murdered. He meets a convict Justin Menge's sister Paula who is visiting him for the first time since he was incarcerated four years ago because she now believes her sibling is innocent. John is taken aback to find his former father-in-law, also a recovering alcoholic Tom Daniels, at the prison. When John was married to Susan, he and Tom did not get along at all. Tom explains that he has a witness innmate artist Justin Menge, who will testify that another inmate Martinez raped his wife while eluding cops. However, during mass, someone somehow murders Menge in front of Jordan and Daniels who swears no one entered the victim's locked cell. With a chance to combine his two loves of being a cop, which he was, with his regular job, John investigates the homicide while beginning to reconcile with Susan. The latest John Jordan whodunit (see Flesh and Blood, Power in the Blood and Blood of the Lamb) is a great locked cell mystery as John and Tom struggle with how the homicide occurred. There are numerous suspects ranging from the victim's sister to his "doppelganger" lover to the man who he was to testify against him as well as staff and other inmates. With a fabulous late twist, readers will fully relish Chaplain Jordon's investigation. Harriet Klausner