Rainbow Black

Rainbow Black by Maggie Thrash is a novel set in one of the latest US witch hunts, the Satanic Panic of the 1990s.

Lacey Bond is a 13-year-old girl in New Hampshire growing up in the tranquility of her hippie parents’ rural daycare center. 

Then the Satanic Panic hits. It’s the summer of 1990 when Lacey ’s parents are handcuffed, flung into the county jail, and faced with a torrent of jaw-dropping accusations as part of a mass hysteria sweeping the nation. When a horrific murder brings Lacey to the breaking point, she makes a ruthless choice that will haunt her for decades.

 As an adult, Lacey mimes a normal life as the law clerk of an illustrious judge. She has a beautiful girlfriend, a measure of security, and the world has mostly forgotten about her. But after a tiny misstep spirals into an uncontrolled legal disaster, the hysteria threatens to begin all over again.

 Rainbow Black is an addictive, searing, high-octane triumph, an imaginative tour de force about one woman’s tireless desire to be free.

Thrash, Maggie. (2024). Rainbow Black. New York: Harper. 

Storming Heaven (Mark Beamon #2)

In the second Mark Beamon book, Storming Heaven, Kyle Mills creates a new religion.

Beamon has been relocated to the FBI office in Flagstaff, Arizona. When a prominent business figure and his wife are murdered and their daughter apparently abducted, Mark and his new staff must fight the clock to find her. Kidnap victims' chances of survival decrease by 50 percent each day they are not rescued.

Along with settling into a new town and working on a high profile case, Mark needs to learn about the fastest growing church in the world - the Church of the Evolution - which is based in Flagstaff. Albert Kneiss (pronounced "nice") has convinced millions of people that he is the next visitation of the messiah. According to the new version of the Bible, Jesus came and delivered God's message (the New Testament) in a language that was appropriate for the time period. Kneiss is now here to update the message to humanity's new intelligence level, taking into account advances in science.

If Beamon goes up against the Kneissians in his investigation, he will have a hell of a fight. Most members are prominent in the community and in positions of power.

Mills, Kyle. (1998). Storming Heaven. New York: HarperCollins.