135. Nick of Time by Tim Downs

Nick of Time by Tim Downs (Canada) - (US)
A Bug Man Mystery, #6

Pages: 309
Ages: 18+
First Published:May 17, 2011
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Genre: crime, mystery, Christian fiction
Rating: 4/5


First sentence:

"I'm not sure I can do this," Nick said.

Acquired: Received a review copy from Thomas Nelson's Book Sneeze Program.

Reason for Reading: I've always wanted to read this series.

Nick is about to get married on Saturday, but a few days before the wedding he is called out of town and discovers that a close friend has been murdered.  As he investigates he finds himself moving farther away from the church as he finds a suspicious death of a deputy sheriff in a small town in the Poconos and starts to solve a cold case in the same area, all which bring him closer to solving his friend's death and further from making it home in time for the wedding.
I loved this book!  The actual plot, once one of the cases has been solved, is quite a bit over-the-top from believability but somehow I didn't mind as the other cases were fun and the main characters were wonderful.  I absolutely love Nick Polchak, an entomologist, who is asocial, wears coke bottle glasses, and extremely sarcastic.  He considers humans another species which he doesn't understand and doesn't particularly like, but he's a genius when it comes to forensic entomology.  One quickly becomes endeared to this social misfit, and as someone with Asperger's I just loved the way he interacted with others.  He is a unique protagonist, somewhat comparable to Grisham on CSI, but the two characters are also widely different from each other.

As far as being Christian fiction, in this case it means the book is clean; no language, no s*x, no gore.  It was a refreshing read in this genre, which I read a lot, and I am certainly going to add this series to my must reads.