Trade Paperback
288 pages
Jan 2007
Harvest House

Review  |   Author Bio  |  Read an Excerpt

Review:

Private investigator Colton Parker could use a little money, even if the love of it is The Root of All Evil. Following his wife’s death, his daughter’s attempted suicide, and his being fired from the FBI, money has become a rare commodity. He’s barely been able to keep his struggling private detective business solvent.

When Elizabeth Carmichael, the personal assistant to dying wealthy businessman Berger Hume, offers Parker a $20,000 retainer for finding Humes’ son whom he’s only recently learned about, Parker jumps at it. How hard could it be?

Finding Miles Poole, Humes’ son, proves harder than he expects. Humes’ two legitimate sons are hostile to the idea of another brother as they stand on the cusp of a huge sale of their father’s hotels. Then Poole himself has reasons not to be found, deadly ones. He’s been a free-agent among the Indianapolis biker gangs and has some really bad guys hunting for him. He thinks Parker may be one of them.

Suddenly this easy money gets Parker’s car shot up, him beaten up, and his daughter threatened. What is the connection between the state speaker of the house and the kingpin of the most dangerous biker gang around? Who are the dudes in the black van who are killing off Miles Poole’s friends? And why, when money is so hard for him to come by, does his wife’s preacher have to keep reminding him that the love of money is the root of all evil?

In this classic style detective story, Dodson does a masterful job of uniting theme, characters, and plot. The pace is rapid and intense, the writing crisp. Some readers who tire of everyone unrealistically becoming Christians will find this story more to their liking. Parker, though becoming less hostile to the preacher and the gospel, is not a Christian. Yet, the book’s theme and Parker’s development as a character are solidly tied to the scripture that the book is based on.

The Root of All Evil is an exciting, fast-paced enjoyable read. It made me want to look for Dodson’s earlier books in the series. -- Debbie W. Wilson, Christian Book Previews.com

Book Jacket:

Brandt Dodson follows the success of the first two books in his Colton Parker Mystery series - Original Sin and Seventy Times Seven - with another intriguing story.

Wealthy businessman Berger Hume is dying. And the one thing he wants most is the one thing his millions cannot buy - a relationship with the son he has never met. As Colton Parker, private investigator, searches to locate the son, he finds himself the target of threats from a powerful gang with ties that extend to high-level government.

The twists of this case cause Colton to question his own values. Will he risk the one thing that matters most? And will this race against time become a race for his own life?