THE SPOKEN WORD

Private investigators Moroni Traveler and his father Martin are pressed into their current assignment by Moroni's longtime friend Willis Tanner (Called Home, etc.), a trouble-shooter for the Mormon Church establishment in Salt Lake City. Lael Woolley, grandniece of ailing First Prophet Elton Woolley, the Church's head, has been kidnapped, seemingly by a group of feminists. The ransom demanded is equal rights for women in the Church, including the priesthood. Against a background of unending heavy rains and flooded roads, Moroni et päre explore Lael's lifestyle for clues to her whereabouts. They find her, of course—and at the same time uncover a subtler kind of chicanery at work. The inner workings of the Mormon establishment are fascinating as ever, but the author's choppy narrative style (verging at times on incoherence) dilutes any sense of urgency in this readable but uncompelling story.