Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

**Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery** In the seemingly tranquil, steeple-dotted town of Saint’s Haven, a crisis of faith is brewing beneath the surface. Young, idealistic priest Jud Duplenticy arrives with a mission to assist the parish’s charismatic but divisive leader, Monsignor Jefferson Wicks. Wicks is a firebrand whose radical sermons and controversial plans for the church’s future have fractured his congregation, creating a simmering cauldron of resentment, fervent loyalty, and hidden agendas among the town’s faithful. Duplenticy, seeking spiritual clarity, instead finds himself in a viper’s nest of theological and personal conflict. The fragile peace shatters with a sudden, shocking, and seemingly impossible murder. A key figure within the church community is found dead under circumstances that defy rational explanation—a locked room scenario that leaves the local authorities baffled. With no obvious suspect and a town paralyzed by fear and suspicion, pragmatic Police Chief Geraldine Scott makes a desperate call. She enlists the world’s greatest detective, the observant and melancholically witty Benoit Blanc, to navigate the labyrinth of lies. Blanc, sensing a puzzle that challenges the very boundaries of reason, descends upon Saint’s Haven. He and Chief Scott form an unlikely alliance, peeling back the layers of the town’s pious facade. They discover that every parishioner harbors a secret: from hidden sins and illicit affairs to bitter grievances over inheritance and the soul of the church itself. Monsignor Wicks’s motivations are scrutinized—is he a visionary or a manipulator? Even the well-intentioned Father Duplenticy finds his own past and convictions under the microscope. As Blanc interrogates the fractured flock, a deeper, more sinister tapestry unfolds. The impossible murder appears to be a calculated act in a much darker game, one that connects ancient church secrets to very modern vendettas. With time running out and the community on the brink of chaos, Blanc must decipher a puzzle where faith collides with deception, and the greatest mysteries lie not in *how* the crime was committed, but in the shadowy *why* buried deep within the human heart. The killer is among them, cloaked in righteousness, and Benoit Blanc must outthink a mind that believes its actions are beyond earthly judgment.