Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    His Right Hand
    His Right Hand
    His Right Hand
    Audiobook9 hours

    His Right Hand

    Written by Mette Ivie Harrison

    Narrated by Kirsten Potter

    3.5/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    Linda Wallheim is the mother of five grown boys and the wife of a Mormon bishop in the heart of Utah. Linda's unofficial job as bishop's wife is to support her husband and act as the de facto mother to the ward. But when people of her ward are in danger, she cannot suppress her misgivings about the church's patriarchal structure and secrecy any longer. Once again pulling from the headlines, His Right Hand tackles an extremely contested topic within the Mormon community--transgenderism. Mormon bishop's wife Linda Wallheim fears for the safety of the people in her community when Karl Ashby, the ward's second counselor (the bishop's right-hand man), is found dead in an elaborately staged murder. Linda tries to console Karl's grieving children and wife, but matters are complicated when the autopsy reveals that Karl was a biological woman. Harrison's work continues to present us with a unique insider's glimpse into the lesser-known workings of the Mormon faith and community. Mette is steadily establishing her name in adult crime fiction as she attends conventions around the country. The Bishop's Wifewas a national bestseller, an ABA IndieNext Selection, and a PLA LibraryReads Top Ten Selection. Praise for The Bishop's Wife "Eye-opening . . . A novel so far from my reality I needed a telescope, but I think that's why I enjoyed this debut so much."--Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel "Intelligent and wry . . . Refreshing."--Raleigh News Observer "A stunning contemporary mystery set in Mormon country...[Harrison] easily transports readers into a world most will find as unfamiliar as a foreign country." --Publishers Weekly, Starred Review "Linda is a fascinating character . . . Her ties to both her family and her church are strong, but she is not beyond questioning her deeply held beliefs when necessary." --Booklist, Starred Review Mette Ivie Harrison is the author of numerous books for young adults. She holds a PhD in German literature from Princeton University and is a nationally ranked triathlete. A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, she lives in Utah with her husband and five children. The Bishop's Wifewas her crime fiction debut. Marketing and Publicity Strong LGBT angle which will augment the women's interest, mystery and LDS angles that we used successfully for THE BISHOP'S WIFE. $45,000 marketing budget. Pre-publication digital/print advertising across trade venues. Multi-stage consumer digital/print advertising. One month out and on pub, commercial and mystery publication focus. Featured galley at ALA Annual and BEA 2015. Facebook and AdWords advertising. Consumer-facing pre-pub galley distro via Goodreads. IndieBound White Box mailing.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateDec 1, 2015
    ISBN9781501904547
    Author

    Mette Ivie Harrison

    Mette Ivie Harrison has a PhD in Germanic literature and is the author of The Princess and the Hound; Mira, Mirror; and The Monster in Me. Of The Princess and the Bear, she says, "I never thought there would be a sequel to The Princess and the Hound, but when I read through the galleys, I realized that there was another book waiting in the story of the bear and the hound. In some ways, you might think of it more as a parallel novel than as a sequel, because it stands on its own as a new story. But who knows? Maybe I’ll look at these galleys and find another story demanding to be told." She lives with her family in Utah.

    More audiobooks from Mette Ivie Harrison

    Related to His Right Hand

    Titles in the series (4)

    View More
    View More

    Related audiobooks

    Mystery For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Havenfall

      Feb 26, 2020

      RELEASED 3 MARCH 304 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Sara Holland Publisher Bloomsbury Adolescence is hard enough at the best of times, but throw in a murdered brother, a mother on death row and a high school full of bullies that really don’t apprecia

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Minders

      Oct 7, 2020

      RELEASED OUT NOW! 448 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook Author John Marrs Publisher Del Rey John Marrs’s latest near future, high-concept techno-thriller isn’t so much a sequel to The One (DNA dating app has dark secret) and Passengers (autonomous ca

      1 min read

    • Article

      ‘Oprah Is A Fake!’

      Sep 9, 2021

      ‘Oprah Is A Fake!’
      2 min read

    • Article

      WRITING Lost Voices

      Nov 2, 2023

      WRITING Lost Voices
      8 min read

    • Article

      Faith Healing

      Jun 19, 2023

      Faith Healing
      3 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Tim Lane

      Dec 8, 2021

      We stopped at the Topaz Internment Camp, where my wife’s family was held during World War II, near the tiny town of Delta, Utah. We found the apocalyptic remnants of one of our country’s great shames. The post A Year in Reading: Tim Lane appeared fi

      7 min read

    • Article

      Winning Letter

      Sep 30, 2022

      I’m a single mother who struggles financially to get through each month. When my washing machine broke I had no funds to repair it, so I asked my neighbours if I could do my washing at their place. On a Wednesday afternoon my bell rang. At the door w

      5 min read

    • Article

      Pats On The Back

      Dec 12, 2019

      I AM writing this column from a prone position. Reclining on my sofa in the library, propped up with cushions like some latter-day Lady Ottoline Morrell, but without the wit, brilliance and patronage. I wish I could say my current condition arose fro

      3 min read

    • Article

      Winning Letter

      May 5, 2023

      IT’S hard to imagine taking on a new job at the age of 73, which is how old King Charles III was when the queen died last year. At an age when most of us would be enjoying retirement, he’s taken on the mantle (quite literally!) of a high-profile role

      5 min read

    • Article

      The New Southern Gothic

      Aug 18, 2022

      The New Southern Gothic
      6 min read

    • Article

      Dani Filth

      Oct 14, 2021

      Kvlt purists might argue that Cradle of Filth aren’t really black metal, but Dani Filth doesn’t really care. After all, he’s played – and partied – with just about every major extreme metal band to come out of Europe since the early 90s, and seen his

      8 min read

    • Article

      ‘We Are Bridges’: Featured Nonfiction from Cassandra Lane

      Apr 20, 2021

      Lane's memoir, which won the 2020 Louise Meriwether First Book Prize, explores the author's ancestral history in order to give her future child a family history. The post ‘We Are Bridges’: Featured Nonfiction from Cassandra Lane appeared first on The

      8 min read

    • Article

      The Second Coming Of Little Pebble

      Aug 11, 2021

      Nowra is an idyllic town nestled among the flourishing waratahs and majestic gums of the NSW south coast. But just a few kilometres away lies an unsignposted dirt road that leads to a dark and desolate place. Huge steel gates guard the entrance to a

      10 min read

    • Article

      The Second Coming Of Little Pebble

      Aug 11, 2021

      The Second Coming Of Little Pebble
      10 min read

    • Article

      An Ocean Of Love

      Aug 17, 2021

      An Ocean Of Love
      6 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Feb 27, 2024

      Email wdytyaeditorial@ourmedia.co.uk Write to WDYTYA? Magazine, Eagle House, Bristol BS1 4ST WIN an AncestryDNA test kit from ancestry.co.uk WORTH £79 The writer of our star letter wins an AncestryDNA test worth £79 – so drop us a line and share your

      6 min read

    • Article

      It All Begins in Love

      Dec 1, 2023

      It All Begins in Love
      9 min read

    • Article

      ‘No One Was Going To SAVE ME’

      Feb 4, 2021

      Everything changed at home when I was around eight. My dad became deeply involved in a local church that preached a ‘doomsday’ brand of Christianity. Looking back, I realise it was more like a cult than a church. Our normal family life disappeared ov

      2 min read

    • Article

      Kalahari CLOSET

      Jun 15, 2022

      Kalahari CLOSET
      4 min read

    • Article

      False Prophets

      Jun 1, 2023

      False Prophets
      6 min read

    • Article

      Growing Up With Ghosts

      Nov 30, 2023

      Many families preserve their own stories or traditions of a ghost. Dr Christopher Laursen from Canada comments: “There are far more occurring than we will ever know about, and most are probably very weak or minor in scope, lasting a very brief period

      9 min read

    • Article

      Fiction From Genealogy

      Mar 20, 2019

      Fiction From Genealogy
      5 min read

    • Article

      The honour’s ALL MINE!

      May 14, 2023

      Musings from our favourite Kiwi funnywoman On a wet Friday afternoon last October, entirely out of the blue, an email arrived in my inbox from the Honours Unit at Parliament. At least, that’s where it said it was from – my first assumption was that i

      2 min read

    • Article

      Cloud of Love

      Nov 24, 2018

      I collapsed onto my bed and closed my eyes. Fifteen family members would be arriving at our house any minute for my husband Tom’s birthday party. I should’ve been greeting our guests. Instead, I was in our room. I was just so tired. If I wanted to ma

      4 min read

    • Article

      Pella Oasis In The Wilderness

      Nov 26, 2021

      Pella Oasis In The Wilderness
      6 min read

    • Article

      Dear Tom And Paul

      Jan 8, 2021

      Dear Tom And Paul
      9 min read

    • Article

      Your LETTERS

      Dec 10, 2021

      Your LETTERS
      6 min read

    • Article

      Chris Erskine: Readers Let Us Know That We're Not Alone

      Apr 3, 2018

      I went to see the King Tut exhibit at Exposition Park. One of their beliefs was that Pharaoh would never die until his name was uttered for the very last time. May it be so with your beloved Christopher. - Bette Ross, Newport Beach, Calif. Your colum

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for His Right Hand

    3.5/5

    30 ratings6 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      I read the whole thing, so I can't say it's truly terrible...but it's not good. She is such a basic and stilted writer; there's no nuance or pretty turn of phrase to be found. The mystery plot gets so incredibly campy, far beyond typical campiness in cozies. Also, this novel is very LGBT101, which may bother some readers. I am certain this is because she isn't writing for us but rather for other Mormons, many of whom are going to need a 101 course. As an aside, I think the author is working through some personal skepticism around inequality issues in the LDS church, which I not only applaud but have gone through firsthand. It does however appear in strange ways in this novel...the random scene where a woman asks another for a woman's priesthood blessing, which is not at all relevant to the plotline in any way, and should instead be its own tale.
    • 4/5
      I was impressed with Harrison’s first book, and enjoyed the second even more. For most of us non-Mormons, Linda Wallheim doesn’t fit the cookie-cutter image we have of a Morman wife, particularly a ward bishop’s wife. She’s no second fiddle to her husband rather she’s a force to be reckoned with, a woman with her own strengths. This is really evident in this book when she tackles the mystery surrounding the death of a transsexual, born a woman but living as a respected husband in the ward. Yes, I had some difficulty swallowing the fact that a wife would not know she was married to a former woman, but Harrison does a good job explaining how this could be possible. Along with solving the mystery, finding out she has a gay son, and disclosing she was married and divorced in her distant past, Wallheim goes a long way in demonstrating how independent some LDS women have become while remaining true to their faith.
    • 4/5
      One of the most interesting parts of this book is the setting of the Mormon community in Utah. I know very little about this religion and found this fascinating. Linda Wallheim, the wife of the local ward's bishop is an excellent character working with her own conscience to find out how one of her husband's right hand men is found murdered on church property. This is the second book in this seried. My next project is to get a copy of the first book, The Bishop's Wife!
    • 4/5
      Interesting!A Mormon enclave in Draper, Utah is the setting for murder unexpected. A crime committed that uncovers a shocking truth and that throws the Mormon hierarchy into disarray. Carl Ashby, a respected member, has been killed and during the investigation, it is revealed that he had transgendered from female. Linda Wallheim, wife of the ward's bishop is determined to help uncover the truth of the murder as suspicion casts a festering pall over the community. In the course of looking into the murder, the main character Linda, gives the reader a fascinating insight into Mormon mores. Many of which are dissected in terms of individual responsibility, interpretation and grace. Referenced is the churches adherence to strict lines of communication, order and within that a person's place according to gender and hierarchy. And here shockingly, a crime has exposed that those gender lines having been crossed. Many questions arise. How then should the church leaders respond ? How did Carl maintain his secret? How much should be revealed to the family and to the community? A problematic area in terms of the crime is that this is a closed community, used to being self supporting with no need of outsiders, or outsider interference. This might be ok in terms of relief work and general community support but murder is a legal matter and as such falls to a different authority. So we are left with the picture that hindrance rather than help is given to the police in the course of the investigation. Those actions might mean the murderer is unwittingly hidden due to the protective intentions of the leadership. The hints of blockage by the church authority and President Frost's involvement with the police is puzzling to the reader and to Linda. The discussions via Linda about the LDS stance on transgender and gays is fascinating, as are other aspects of the Church's practices and history. The response by President Frost proclaiming that all ordinances would have to be nullified and redone is troubling for the leaders because of some quite far reaching ramifications. These insights drew me on--as some of the practices of Mormonism are revealed. Because of the carefully built background it was some time before the actual murder took hold of the writing. When I compare the plot construction with that of one of my favourite mystery writers and coincidentally, a LDS member, Anne Perry, I feel that the buildup of tension in His Right Hand is sporadic, and although I understand that explanations about the faith are important to some of the happenings, their complexity acted against the plot. Fortunately all came together rather dramatically in the last couple of chapters. Linda is a strong and likeable character, who seems to push the boundaries, and yet struggles to work within the confines of her community, at the same time accepting that those limitations are part and parcel of where she has chosen to stay.A NetGalley ARC
    • 4/5
      With the Mormon Church's recent hardline decision on the LGBT community within its ranks, His Right Hand couldn't possibly be more timely. In this second book to feature Linda Wallheim, there are many secrets to be uncovered, and some of these secrets belong to Linda and her own family. The more about Carl Ashby that's uncovered, the clearer the killer's identity becomes, but proving it is tough because Church officials have closed ranks against the police. This is a maneuver that has been perfected over almost two centuries because of the intense persecution Mormons faced in the nineteenth century. Linda seems more sure of herself in this second book in the series. She still questions her place in life now that her last child is off to university and out of the house, but she's calmer, and it's got a lot to do with the friendship she's formed with a neighbor. It was fascinating for me to watch Linda investigate this extremely volatile case, especially with regard to her uneasy relationship with the homicide detective in charge.One of the strengths of this book (and the series) is the portrait of Mormonism that Mette Ivie Harrison paints for us. It is a heartfelt portrait by an artist who has done much soul-searching. It is a balanced portrait that is as honest as the artist can make it, showing both the good and the bad in this religion that most people know nothing about. Many readers like me enjoy reading mysteries set in other countries in order to learn about different cultures. Often we forget to pay attention to the different cultures that are on our own doorstep. I find Harrison's Linda Wallheim books to be good mysteries with strong characters. That they are also meditative and enlightening is icing on the cake.
    • 4/5
      I found this second mystery by Mette Ivie Harrison almost as enthralling as the first, in spite of the fact that I guessed the solution before the end. What sets this series apart is its setting in a modern mainstream Mormon community, a group I don’t know a lot about, and the open, intimate tone of the story. This time the characters are struggling with ripped from the headlines issues of sexual identity and acceptance of difference. Main character Linda Wallheim, the wife of a bishop, is a devout believer but has some troubling questions about her church’s policies and power structure. Her marriage is generally good, but not without challenges, and she’s at loose ends because her youngest son has all but moved out of the house. When her husband’s rigidly traditional colleague is murdered Linda becomes deeply involved in helping the victim’s distraught, almost unhinged widow and two teenage children. This puts her in a position to notice disturbing patterns which could help solve the crime, drawing Linda further into dangerous circumstances, but church higher-ups insist that some aspects of the situation be kept from the public, hampering the police investigation.The author is a Mormon herself and I greatly enjoyed having a glimpse into that community. It’s a moving, family-focused story and the non-murder themes have some basis in reality--Harrison explains in the afterword that the idea for the book came from an incident she witnessed firsthand.