Scarlet Crosses: The Truth Lies Within
...fears swarm inside Harris' mind. He listens as they howl, deriding him with predictions of calamities to come. Tears well up in his eyes as one specter, standing dominant over the others, casts its judgment on his soul. Scarlet Crosses, Pg. 266 Deep within the shadows, secrets, veils, and masks of a spellbinding mystery, beckons a story of unconditional love and acceptance; of reconciliation and shifting dogmas. Scarlet Crosses, the gripping debut novel by J. Beckham Steele, reveals that sometimes the search for answers yields unexpected truths. Judgement and justice turn the heart of New Orleans police detective Albert Harris inside out in Scarlet Crosses, a timely story of family, hidden identities, rejection, bullying--and poetic justice. Layered within the Crescent City's all-night bars, iconic cathedrals, cemeteries, and pastoral lands rising from the Mississippi valley are riveting mysteries of identity and consequences of actions--both innocent and criminal--ripped from today's headlines. For Harris, "just another case" in a long career of investigations will become a transformative journey, heartbreaking and inspiring, proving that sometimes the truth lies within. Harris is a seasoned detective and a man of principle. Every dogma he has held clashes against the masks all around him on the streets of New Orleans. To him, there's no room in Heaven for the L, the G, the B, and the T. His Christian ideals have crashed against his own walls and separated him from his grandson Kyle, whose feminine behaviors Harris can no longer discipline away. Harris' probing has stopped, frozen in the fear of what he may discover. Still mourning the senseless death of his daughter and angered by the travesty of justice that led to her killer's acquittal, Harris blames the system, he blames attorneys, but mostly-he blames himself. When the city's top criminal defense attorney, Megan Callahan-a woman Harris detests-becomes a victim herself, he is tasked with the investigation. The truth he seeks, and the truth that seeks him, is buried deep within her heart. With Megan trapped in a whirlpool of fear, compassion trumps bitterness as Harris becomes a lifeline of hope. The lines between personal and professional lives blur for Harris and Megan as they navigate uncharted waters of the flip side of The Big Easy. Harris will become tangled in the cloaked, hide-and-seek lives of some in the LGBT community. The investigation becomes a harrowing journey for all. Demons long thought vanquished will reappear, and hidden fears will be uncovered. Megan ultimately holds the key to untangle the twisted lines of the investigation and to the biggest case of Harris' life-his own conflicted heart.