Chastity Byrnes, sister to Hope and Faith, is now working as a forensic nurse in St. Louis. She is 26 and it has been ten years she has seen or heard from her family. The story opens as her brother-in-law, Dr. Max Stanton, calls from New Orleans reporting that her sister Faith is missing and wants Chastity to come help find her. Max, a doctor with a giant ego and reputation, is frustrated by the apathy of the New Orleans Police Department as they are treating his case as a runaway wife.  

Reluctantly, Chastity agrees to help. Confronting any part of her past is precisely what she does not want to do. As a very young child, her father regularly sexually abused her and it was finally her testimony that sent him to prison. She was traumatized, as any sixteen year old would be, when she came home one day and learned Faith and her mother had just walked out of the house abandoning her, not to be heard from again. Gradually, the reader learns about Hope.  

Upon meeting Max at her sister’s home, she is stunned to find the house’s interior decor mimicking her childhood home. Filled with too much baggage to weigh, Chastity elects to stay with Kareena, a fellow nurse and friend of hers in the city. Through Kareena she hires James, a local cabbie to be her wheels for the duration; James is a former fireman who has been badly disfigured by a fire. The cast of secondary characters is entertaining, for their diversity as well as their often charming contributions to the story. Dreyer’s characters are always finely drawn, her dialog is among the best.  

Kareena and James become her able assistants as persons connected to Faith keep turning up dead. Once Chastity finds the common thread, they are off and running, twisting their way to an ending that is neither predictable, nor contrived.  

Sinners and Saints is one of Dreyer’s best works. It is impressive her books keep getting better rather than stagnating with success.  

--Thea Davis