Passing Judgment

As the national debate between Hollywood and the Christian Coalition heats up, one man must battle an entire town's prejudice to find a fundamentalist killer.

With the U.S. presidential campaign in full swing and the players ranging from the Hollywood elite to the Religious Right, Passing Judgment is a novel poised on the border between politics and religion. In this charged atmosphere, New Spirit stands at the center of Southern Christian fundamentalism, a high-profile showplace where everyone knows one another but no one is quite what he seems. And these followers and residents of New Spirit are clashing with their local devil...Baird Lowen.

A highly acclaimed Hollywood director forced into early retirement as a result of tragedy on the set of his last masterpiece, Baird is content to fish for bass in the nearby pond and write incendiary articles about New Spirit. But when the fiery death of a fellow detractor spurs Baird to find the murderers, he must first uncover a plot of extortion that circles back on his own troubled past. National anti-drug crusader and gubernatorial hopeful Roy Duncan is the right-hand man to New Spirit's Reverend Frederick Prescott, and both are suspects in Baird's private search for the killers. But it is Roy who seeks Baird out with an offer he really can't refuse: Find Roy's blackmailer or suffer the exposure of his own tragic secret.