Salvation Station is Kathryn Schleich's first novel, a clever story about a female psychopath who targets pastors who have recently lost their wives due to accident or illness. She then swoops into the scene. As a bright and beautiful woman who is apparently only interested in the welfare of the church, she is able to essentially take over the finances of Christian churches, suggesting that she can help them improve their fame and their collections, only for the goal of doing Christ's work. However, it then becomes her task to embezzle those church funds and then disappear with the loot before she gets caught. The author hit hard the naivete of the church members and their willingness to give money for Christ for their church. If the circumstances suggest to her that she would be better off to murder someone to protect her identity, she is willing to do that. Under an earlier identity, when her minister husband decided that it was his calling to do missionary work in Africa, they seemed to have left Lincoln, Nebraska together, along with their two children. It was when the new minister moved into the parsonage, that his dog dug up a human bone in the flower garden. This woman's husband was buried there along with their two children, but she was nowhere to be found. Captain Linda Turner could not let go of this case and she spent the next several years trying to solve that heinous crime.
The evil one was an expert in changing her identity, changing her appearance, and using homemade poisons to kill her pursuers. I don't think the writing in this novel was particularly good, but the plot is a good one. Female psychopaths are rare. The author created a good and sympathetic new husband-pastor.
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