Anointed

About the Book

B. G. Holcomb was the country’s leading radio and television evangelist until a TV expose of a phony healing brought the ministry to its knees.  Having lost his wife, his daughter and most of the people he thought were his friends, B. G. spends the next twenty years in self-imposed obscurity until his lifeless body is discovered in a cheap motel room, alone and forgotten.  Max Needleman, a freelance writer who cannot forget his own childhood encounter with the former evangelist, happens across a notice about B. G.’s death in the newspaper and is drawn to find out more.

A cryptic message scribbled in the margin of a Bible found next to the body makes the detective in charge of the investigation suspect murder in spite of the fact that there is no evidence to suggest that B. G. died of anything other than natural causes.  Max manages to find Forrest Taylor, B. G.’s last remaining friend, but while the alcoholic Taylor acts as though he wants to help, it’s obvious that he knows things he doesn’t want to talk about.  It’s only after B. G.’s ex-wife shows up that Max and the police find out about Tony Pellerman, the son of B. G.’s ex-partner, who not only has a possible motive but was staying in B. G.’s motel the night of the murder.  

While the police are rapidly losing interest in the case because of the absence of any hard evidence, Max finds himself more deeply absorbed in spite of his wife’s objections and his editor’s demands.  He not only wants to understand B. G. but Tony, as well, the man B. G. had come to love like a son but who had come to hate B. G. with unrestrained intensity.  In the end, B. G.’s death manages to match his life, a mélange of miracles and ambiguities, uniquely satisfying to some, empty and preposterous to others.

About the Author

Mark Benassi is currently working on his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the University of Colorado-Boulder after having spent a number of years as a programmer and systems analyst and shorter stints at a number of other jobs and businesses. His first published novel, The Thor Option, was released by Dell in 1980. Anointed was written several years ago and the first chapter appeared as a short story in Dreams and Visions #15, a Canadian literary magazine, under the title The Gift. After a few years of sending the manuscript around and receiving some of the more interesting rejections that he had received for any of his work, Mark decided to try the electronic self-publishing approach. He has two grown children and five grandchildren and currently lives in Colorado with his wife of 30 years.