Sinner's Prayer (A Dan Randolph/Greg Zhu Mystery) by Dwain Lee
About Sinner's Prayer
Sinner's Prayer (A Dan Randolph/Greg Zhu Mystery)
LGBTQ+ Traditional
Mystery 2nd in Series following Plausible Deception
Settings - Primarily Louisville, Kentucky, along with southwestern Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston
Publisher : Maison Laide Press
Publication date : March 25, 2026
Print length : 328 pages
Paperback ISBN-13 : 979-8218702953
ASIN : B0GT28D7W6
Digital ISBN-13 : 979-8218704353
ASIN : B0GTC9G4C6
The remains of a highly regarded church member who disappeared without a trace almost forty years earlier are found buried in the basement of Parkvale Presbyterian Church in Louisville. Almost immediately after the discovery, another much-beloved former member dies by suicide at a lonely scenic roadside overlook. Are the two deaths related? Presbyterian minister Dan Randolph is pondering his legacy as retirement nears. Now, he's got to deal with the murder, too, which hasn't just dug up bones, but also long-held secrets of misconduct, sexual abuse, and scandal-along with angry demands for his own ouster, with some claiming he's mishandled the situation. SINNER'S PRAYER is the second in a series of mysteries featuring Dan Randolph and his violin-making husband Greg Zhu. As the mystery unfolds, readers get an engaging, humorous, sometimes frustrating, and often touching look into their very different personalities and their unique relationship. At the same time, the book examines serious issues of not only the underlying murder, but suicide, sexual abuse within the church, homophobia, and the changing social realities of living as one's authentic self, told through a series of flashbacks from present time to 1985. Follow Dan and Greg as the mystery makes its way through southwestern Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston as well as their hometown of Louisville. Who killed the man in the basement-and why?
About Dwain Lee
DWAIN LEE is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). He is a graduate of Penn State University and Trinity Lutheran Seminary. Before entering the ministry, he was an architect in private practice for many years, mostly in Columbus, Ohio. He and his husband currently live in Louisville, Kentucky, where he works, writes, supports the arts, and is active in various forms of social justice advocacy. He has two daughters he is immensely proud of, enjoys travel, gardening, home repair, camping, and yoga, and is a member of the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels.
Interview:
- When did you first realize you
wanted to be a writer?
Even when I was just five or six years old, I was fascinated by books and the way they felt in my hands and spoke to my heart. Almost as soon as I could print, I crafted my own little books and wanted to be able to offer that same magic to others through the power of story.
Despite my early fascination with books and writing, I didn’t
write anything seriously until I was middle-aged, having a couple of magazine
articles published when I was in my thirties or forties. But I didn’t really
seriously consider writing novels until I was in my sixties—my first novel, Plausible
Deception, was published when I was 64 years old, and this one,Sinner’s
Prayer,is following about a year and a half later.
2.
How
long does it take you to write a book?
Both of my books took just about a year and a
half from initial, bare-bones concept to published book. When I’ve told people
that in the past, some will think that’s very fast, while others consider it
ridiculously slow. I’m sure everyone has their own pace and style—as well as
recognizing that for myself and many others, we’ve got day jobs and can’t
devote every waking hour to writing—but for me, that’s been a workable
timeframe.
- What is your work schedule like
when you're writing?
I truly envy authors who can establish a predictable, structured writing routine or discipline. With professional retirement not too terribly far away, I’d love to be able to move in that direction in the future, but for now, my writing schedule is much more piecemeal and “grab it when you can get it.” I wish that weren’t the case, but for now, it’s my reality.
- What would you say is your
interesting writing quirk?
My writing tends to get split between two very different settings: either a very quiet, isolated setting at home, or while sitting in a loud, crowded coffee, with little in between. I’ve been sitting in the coffee shop trying to work out a scene when I’ll inadvertently overhear a snippet of conversation or a turn of phrase that fits perfectly into what I’m trying to work out in the moment, and I’ll work them into the manuscript almost verbatim. It’s happened more than once, and I laugh each time it does—if I’d been cloistered in the “writing den” at home, I’d have missed that bit of real-time inspiration.
- How do books get published?
Unless lightning strikes and you get a literary agent or a major traditional publisher interested in your work, a book gets published through a lot of hard work, skinned knees, and lessons learned the hard way, either working with a small independent “hybrid” publisher or self-publishing. With my first book, I worked with a hybrid publisher who brought me together with an editor and book designer, coordinated small-run offset printing, and handled wholesale distribution. Those were all things that I didn’t know anything about, and I’m grateful for the assistance and education that it gave me. However, that assistance came at significant cost—and all of the expenses of getting the book in print came directly out of my pocket, not the publisher’s. Being a small publisher/distributor led to limited avenues for placement in retail outlets, and there were other issues that weren’t consistent with my overall goals for the second novel, both in terms of overall process and economics. So for the second novel, I chose to self-publish under my own imprint. I built on the lessons learned from the first book, maintaining full control over the process and improving overall economics. I also chose to work with Ingram Spark for printing and domestic and international wholesale distribution through major retailers.
- Where do you get your
information or ideas for your books?
My two books are part of a series that feature the same protagonists—the Reverend Dan Randolph, a gay Presbyterian minister in his 60s, and his husband, the internationally known professional violin maker Greg Zhu. The inspiration for these two characters was probably the easiest part of the process, since they’re modeled very heavily on myself and my own violin-making husband. The idea for the first book came directly out of actual experiences that the two of us had while at a violin association convention in California—the theft of the rare Stradivarius violin that was the cornerstone of the story was purely fictitious, but the violin itself is very real, as were many of the ancillary scenes portrayed in the book. In the second book, the inspiration was found not in my husband’s musical world, but in my professional world of the church. Here again, while I’ve never had to deal with a murdered body being found buried in my church basement, many of the characters and contours of the story are very real and common to that world.
[When did you write your first book and how old were you?
(answered above)]
- What do you like to do when
you're not writing?
At least for a while longer, I deeply love serving my congregation as their pastor. But life is more than just work, even important work. We live in a 140-year-old “double shotgun” house in an eclectic near-downtown neighborhood of Louisville, which means that we live in a near-constant reconstruction project. It’s a good thing that most of my adult life, I was an architect and I actually enjoy home improvement projects. We tend to our tiny back garden and goldfish pond—our urban “microasis.” We enjoy time with our families, and we love dinner parties with a small group of friends, camping, yoga, and travel. In fact, we just returned from an extended vacation to Taiwan, an incredible experience that will undoubtedly become inspiration for parts of a future book.
- What does your family think of
your writing?
I’m very fortunate that my husband, my adult children, and other extended family are all supportive of my writing. It can be tricky at times if a character in a book is inspired by a family member, and you want the character to say or do or be something not completely consistent with their real-life inspiration, but that’s something that together, we’ve been able to navigate with only occasional stumbles.
- What was one of the most
surprising things you learned in creating your books?
Simply put, that it was a lot harder than I’d originally assumed—but hard or not, I could, in fact, do it, and I think pretty well, and I’m enjoying it immensely.
- Which book is your favorite?
My two wonderful adult daughters have very different personalities, different passions, gifts, and outlooks. It’s similar with my books. Just as I don’t love one of my daughters more than the other, neither do I love one of my books over the other. They’re very different, but I love them both, maybe specifically because of those differences.
- Do you have any suggestions to
help me become a better writer? If so, what are they?
Keep writing, and writing, and then write some more. Read others’ writing, not only for the appreciation of what they’ve written, but how they’ve structured it. Live life fully and broadly; gain as much varied experience and knowledge of the world and the people around you as you can; there are an infinite number of stories waiting to be drawn out of them if you only really see them. Find a very good editor. Allow yourself to be challenged by them, and maybe sometimes get mad at them, and at all times, humbly and gratefully learn from them. Listen to other writers discuss how they go about the craft. Read some books about the subject—a good one that I’ve recently discovered is Page Turner by Barbara Kyle.
- Do you hear from your readers
much? What kinds of things do they say?
I love hearing from my readers! I wish I heard from them even more. I’ve gotten such wonderful and helpful feedback from them, and I truly take their thoughts to heart. They’ve offered thoughts regarding the characters I’ve created, the plot lines, whether X was believable or not, whether the solution to the mystery was sufficiently elusive and surprising, but believable once revealed, you name it, they’ve shared it!
- What do you think makes a good
story?
An plot that has a sufficient amount of universality of experience, at least in general terms if not specifics. Believable characters that can be appreciated, whether they’re “good” or “bad” characters, that have a realistic level of complexity and occasionally even internal contradiction—just like all of us—and that we want to journey alongside as the story unfolds.
- As a child, what did you want
to do when you grew up?
From the time I was eight or nine years old, when my parents built a home, I knew I wanted to be an architect. I was fortunate enough to have had that come true, becoming an architect in private practice and owning my own firm for most of my adult life. But life changes, and I was also fortunate to transition to a second profession that has been equally fulfilling, serving as clergy in parish, chaplaincy, and community roles. Now, as that chapter nears conclusion, I’m looking forward with anticipation for the next chapter.
- What Would you like
my readers to know?
I’d love for them to check out SINNER’S PRAYER, to appreciate the story and the depth of its complex characters, ultimately finding hope even while wrestling with some of the darker and difficult themes woven throughout it.
More generally, I’ve joked to some people that one important
aspect of writing these books is to offer people a realistic and touching
portrayal of a gay couple in their 60s—to show that they can resonate with
readers of all ages, but also to show that life, especially gay life, doesn’t
end at forty, or even fifty. If my readers didn’t recognize that before, I hope
they will by the time they’ve reached the last page.
Thanks very much for this interview—and if any of your audience would like to reach out to me with questions, or just want to say hi, I hope they will.
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