THE ANGEL ACRONYM: A Mystery Introducing Toom Taggart

Edwards offers a fresh take on the biblio-mystery with this debut effort, set at the Independence, Mo., headquarters of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Toom Taggart, a coffee-swigging, cynical historian, suspects foul play when one of his colleagues turns up dead in the church archives. Although denominational officials and police treat the death as an ill-timed heart attack or stroke, Toom finds reasons to believe that the deceased was actually poisoned—but why, and by whom? Edwards explores what's at stake in ecclesiastical history by positing that a newly discovered document showing the prophet Joseph Smith to be a charlatan might have been enough to push one of Toom's co-workers to murder. It's not a particularly original plot, and the identity of the killer is never really in question, but the iconoclastic Toom is a deeply likable protagonist. Along the way, Edwards serves up some interesting and even profound thoughts on faith, the nature of belief, the power of knowledge and the psychological effect of killing on a murderer. The book's dry, wry humor occasionally goes over the top with unnecessary authorial asides, but is mostly right on the money. Edwards offers particularly cogent and stinging indictments of ecclesiastical bureaucracy in all its pencil-pushing banality. While the novel will be most appreciated by RLDS and LDS folks who understand the many unexplained insider terms, others will simply be hooked by the characters. (Apr. 6)