---
title: "Pattern of Wounds by J Mark Bertrand (Roland March #2)"
description: "Summary: A well written standard police procedural that stands out precisely because it is a Christian fiction book Pretty soon I am going to stop saying I tend to not be a fan of mysteries...."
url: https://bookwi.se/pattern/
date: 2014-01-24
modified: 2014-01-24
author: "Adam Shields"
categories: ["Book Reviews"]
tags: ["Scribd"]
type: post
lang: en
---

# Pattern of Wounds by J Mark Bertrand (Roland March #2)

[![Pattern of Wounds ](https://bookwi.se/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/a24.jpg)](http://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Wounds-Roland-March-Mystery-ebook/dp/B0054Z7L58/)**Summary: A well written standard police procedural that stands out precisely because it is a Christian fiction book**

Pretty soon I am going to stop saying I tend to not be a fan of mysteries.  Because the books I have been enjoying the most lately are mysteries.

Pattern of Wounds is the second in a trilogy of books about a homicide detective in Houston.  Roland March is a cop that has seen better days.  But he feels like his work, as little as he likes it most of the time, does something.

In this book, a young woman is found floating in a pool, stabbed to death.  Detective March is called and despite what everyone else says, he feels like this case has some relationship to an earlier case that he broke.

As with the first book, his marriage is a bit rocky.  He doesn’t really get along with anyone well.  He doggedly follows the clues, goes down some dead ends and keeps bumping into people that despite it all, still like him, but a lot more that don’t.

Bertrand has a solid police procedural series here.  He write a series that is still clearly in the Christian fiction world, but with a non-Christian protagonist that does not become a Christian at the end of either the first or second book.  There is a meditation on the problem of evil in this book, but Bertrand avoids the easy answers.  As I said about the first book, if all Christian fiction was this good, I would read more of it.

But I was frustrated to glance through the reviews and see virtually all of the negative reviews from obviously Christian fiction readers that just don’t like police procedurals or mysteries.  If you don’t like descriptions of dead bodies or cops tracking down bad guys then you should not read police procedurals.  It is like reading a romance novel and complaining about people kissing.  It is part of the genre.

The good news is that this is a series that has low cost of entry.  The [first book is almost always free ](http://www.amazon.com/Back-Murder-Roland-March-Mystery-ebook/dp/B008BTH59Q/)on kindle and the second two books in the trilogy have been $3.99 on kindle for months now.  So you can get about 1000 pages of good Christian fiction for less than $8.

Pattern of Wounds Purchase Links: [Paperback](http://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Wounds-Roland-March-Mystery/dp/B005X4BNSG/), [Kindle Edition](http://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Wounds-Roland-March-Mystery-ebook/dp/B0054Z7L58/)

Related  Bookwi.se Book Reviews

- [Back on Murder (Roland March #1)](https://bookwi.se/back-on-murder-a-roland-march-mystery-1-by-j-mark-bertrand/) – Seth’s Review
- [Back on Murder (Roland March #1)](https://bookwi.se/back-on-murder/) – Adam’s Review
- [Bruno, Chief of Police by](https://bookwi.se/bruno/) Walter Martin
- [Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen](https://bookwi.se/her-royal-spyness/) (#1)
- [A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen](https://bookwi.se/royal-pain/) (#2)

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