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Book Details
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.
Author Links
Author’s Website: www.dwainlee-author.weebly.com
Facebook: Dwain Lee, Author https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61561161406771
Instagram: dwain.lee.author https://www.instagram.com/dwain.lee.author/
Purchase Links
Author’s Online Store (preferred) Amazon B&N
Character Interview
Describe yourself.
Sure, let’s start with the basics. My name is Mark Mackenzie. I was born in 1970 in Louisville, Kentucky, where I grew up, attended university, and eventually became a psychotherapist. Shortly after my father passed away, I relocated to Cincinnati. When I was growing up, some people considered me the “all-American kid.” For a time, though, my outgoing nature turned. I became quiet, withdrawn, and people wondered why.
All of that is past tense, though, because, as you’ll learn very early in the book, I’m now dead. I’m not the murder victim found buried in the church basement, but my death occurred shortly after he was discovered, and people have wondered if there was some connection between the two events.
What makes you laugh?
I hate to admit it, having been a highly educated and respectable mental health professional, but it seems I never really grew out of immature pranks and playful jokes—sometimes, the most sophomoric and irreverent, the better. This was especially true with my husband Jason, who apparently failed at fully growing up as much as I did. Sharing that sense of humor was something that I reveled in. it was something that helped us get through some really dark times.
Are you afraid of anything?
Not anymore, obviously. But as you’ll learn—I don’t want to give away too much of the story—there were definitely things during my life that I was very afraid of. As a teen, I feared the implications of my gradual understanding that I was gay—fears for myself to be sure, but just as much, maybe even more, I feared how that might affect my parents and the relationship we’d always had. I was the definitive firstborn child, and I would have done anything to avoid being a disappointment in their eyes. But there was something far worse that I feared, and that becomes a significant part of the mystery. Ironically, it was something that, like two sides of the same coin, ultimately drove me to the best, and worst, aspects of my life.
Do you have a special talent or gift?
That’s the “best” side of the coin. I mentioned that I became a psychotherapist. This part of me isn’t detailed in depth in the book, but readers will learn that I did so with hopes of helping adolescents and teens who struggled with some of the same things I experienced in my own life. I was fifteen years old in 1985. Coming of age, and dealing with sexuality, was different than it is now, but there’s plenty of emotional and psychological overlap as teens today go through the same need for acceptance. There are still pressures from society and often families that aren’t supportive, and I was able to offer them safe space and counsel, helping
them to appreciate and love their authentic selves. But even more than that, my practice was geared at helping young people who endured the even more painful trauma that I experienced when I was young, which you’ll learn more about in the book. In short, my gift was my ability to make a lasting and positive difference in the lives of others, which, honestly, is a question that several other characters in the book also wrestle with.
Do you have a secret?
I carried multiple secrets my entire life. The implications of having kept the biggest of those secrets are what ultimately led me to the “worst” side of the coin.
Tell us about your family.
Oh, my family of origin was amazing. My father, Bill Mackenzie, was an outgoing, happy, successful “man’s man” who enjoyed life, sports, hunting, and working on his vintage Ford Mustang. I always looked up to him in so many ways. Even though I lived pretty openly as a gay man from the time I went to college, I fully came out only after he died, because I didn’t want to hurt him, or worse, lose him. When I was growing up, my mother, Catherine, was vibrant, outspoken, very active and athletic, a big tennis player. Her personality was the perfect counterpoint to my father’s—she loved him dearly, but she wouldn’t ever let him
get too full of himself, and she managed to smooth over some of his rougher edges when they might appear. And my younger sister, Sarah—man, I miss Sarah. Like any other kids, we’d occasionally get on each other’s nerves, but even when we were needling each other, we knew it was all in jest, and we loved each other deeply. I would do anything to keep her from ever being hurt. As a family, we always attended church at the nearby Parkvale Presbyterian Church, which you’ll learn about in the book. I maintained my connection with Parkvale right up until I moved to Cincinnati, and my mother is still a member there. It was
always a place of intense emotions for me—both good and, unfortunately, bad as well.
Beyond my “first family,” though, the most important person to me was my husband, Jason Leonard. I met Jason when we were both kids in the Louisville Youth Orchestra. After Jason’s family moved to near our home, we went to school together, did things together in the church youth group together, and became best friends. That raised some people’s eyebrows in 1985. Louisville
had been a segregated city until the mid-1960s, and the school districts weren’t integrated until the mid-1970s, so it was still unusual for a White teen to have a Black best friend.
Of course, over time we realized that we were more than just best friends. Jason came out to his parents while we were still in high school, long before I came out to my parents. I always wished I’d had his courage. Jason is smart, funny, drop-dead handsome, and a gifted amateur classical musician. He always knew how to lift me up in that perfect balance of support, challenge, seriousness, and humor—he knew exactly how to make me know I was loved, even in the moments I most deeply questioned things. He was my hero, and I regret that my ultimate decisions caused him such deep pain. I miss Jason the most. He was, and is, everything to me.
What is your most embarrassing moment?
Hah, there are a lot of contenders for that title, but there’s one embarrassing moment in particular that you’ll learn about in the book. Once, when we were teenagers, Jason and I tried to sneak into The Downtowner, a well-known Louisville gay bar, to see what it was like. While we were trying to muster up the courage to go in, we were accosted by an amazing, over-the-top drag queen, Gloria Patri—the first drag queen I’d ever met—who not only helped us get into the bar, but who also stayed right by our side. She took us under her wing, realizing we shouldn’t really have been there and not allowing us to get into any real trouble, while still allowing us to satisfy our curiosity. Of course, Jason and I were nervous about being there, and I was worried that someone we’d see someone we knew—or worse, someone we knew would see us. That’s when Gloria told me something that embarrassed me more than I think I’d ever been—but I think I’ll let you read about that for yourself. Sorry, no spoilers here!
What do you do for fun?
Jason and I both shared a lifelong love for music. In fact, he became on-air talent for a local Cincinnati classical radio station. We also loved to travel, and we traveled all around the world, experiencing different cultures, cities, natural beauty, and especially the people. We’ve always been avid swimmers, too, so we hit a lot of beaches in our travels.
As faraway as we would go, though, there was one place, much closer to home, that we returned to often. There’s a quaint, rustic, historical old resort hotel in the Laurel Highlands in southwestern Pennsylvania, called the Summit Inn. As its name suggests, it sits at the top of a particular mountain in the Allegheny mountain range, in the heart of that beautiful part of the state. The Summit Inn is a well-appointed but unpretentious, cozy place where Jason and I could escape for short getaways and simply enjoy the scenic beauty, the easygoing grandeur of the old hotel, and unwind. We went there so often all the staff knew us, and we
knew them. It was the perfect base of operations for us as we’d swim, golf, ski, and hike the many great trails in the area. We’d often sit in the grand lobby at the end of the day, enjoying drinks while sitting in rocking chairs in front of the massive stone fireplace on a cold winter evening—it was heaven. You’ll actually learn a bit about the Summit Inn in the book, as a few very important scenes take place there.
If you could change anything about your life what would it be?
That’s a particularly sensitive question for me, as you’ll come to understand when you read the book. Let’s move on to the next question, please.
Tell me about your author.
Dwain has worn multiple hats over the course of his life. As an adult, he was an architect for many years, but for the past twenty years, he’s been a Presbyterian minister, serving in both parish settings and hospital chaplaincy. And now, he’s putting on an additional hat, that of being a writer of amateur-sleuth LGBTQ+ themed mystery novels.
He has two adult daughters from a previous marriage. After years of wrestling with his own sexuality, he began coming out as gay in 2012, while he was in seminary, and fully kicked the closet door open in 2016. These days, he lives with his husband, internationally recognized professional violin maker George Yu, in the Germantown/Schnitzelburg area of my beloved Louisville. You probably shouldn’t be surprised to learn that the two main characters in both of Dwain’s books, the Rev. Dan Randolph and his husband, Greg Zhu, are based heavily on Dwain and George, and their own life together, and that Parkvale Presbyterian—the building, anyway, not the events that take place in the story—is modeled on Springdale Presbyterian Church in Louisville, which Dwain currently serves as pastor.
While Rev. Dan is modeled on (but not identical to) real-life Dwain, parts of Dwain’s broad life experiences both before and after coming out, provide contour to several characters in the book. That’s even true for me, to some extent. While it isn’t as simple as saying that I’m him at some particular an age, there are specific parts of my experience that were drawn out of his own thoughts, feelings, and fears at different times in his life. I think that in doing that, Dwain has simply portrayed experiences that will resonate with many people, whether of my generation or otherwise, who have navigated their own personal journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance.
In this second of his Dan Randolph/Greg Zhu mysteries, Dwain is weaving together multiple streams of narrative, ranging from cute and light-hearted to silly and occasionally even absurd, all the way to horrifying and gut-wrenching. He’s trying to offer readers a story that offers hope and positivity, while also handling the worst parts of the plot with care and sensitivity.
One of the interesting things that he did in this novel was that he reached out to numerous accomplished and well-known musicians, from several genres to collaborate on the book. Each musician was asked to read a chapter of the book, and to suggest a piece of music (or even a couple) that they felt captured the overarching emotion or action of that chapter. Together, all of the musical selections comprises a “Sinner’s Prayer Playlist” which readers can listen to in its entirety on Spotify. I’ve never seen that done in a book before, and I think it’s a pretty fun idea.
Do you like the way they write you?
I do, yes. I know better than anyone that I am not—was not—a perfect person. I had my strengths, but I also had my shortcomings, my failures, and I think Dwain has done a good job at giving people an insight into my complex, and sometimes even contradictory, feelings and actions. Overall, Dwain made clear that even given my own internal struggles, I was much-beloved and accepted—and maybe most importantly to me, as it also is to Rev. Dan, that I made a lasting and positive difference to the people whose lives I touched. Ultimately, what better life, what better legacy, could a person hope for?
TOUR PARTICIPANTS
May 13 – Books1987 – SPOTLIGHT
May 14 – Deal Sharing Aunt – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
May 15 – Books, Ramblings, and Tea – SPOTLIGHT
May 16 – The Mystery of Writing – CHARACTER GUEST POST
May 17 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT
May 18 – Sarcastically Yours, Jen – SPOTLIGHT
May 19 – Guatemala Paula Loves to Read– SPOTLIGHT
May 20 – Boys’ Mom Reads! – REVIEW
May 21 – Sarandipity’s – CHARACTER INTERVIEW
May 22 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
May 23 – Socrates Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
May 24 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – SPOTLIGHT
May 25 – Carla Loves To Read – CHARACTER GUEST POST*
May 26 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – REVIEW
Giveaway
Prizes – 1 Print Copy US Only – 1 Digital Copy – International of Sinner’s Prayer (A Dan Randolph/Greg Zhu Mystery) by Dwain Lee
