A heavy heart is the hardest to carry.

In a city where ambition is a god and success is the only currency, Brother Malachi knows that the things we possess eventually end up possessing us.

When a high-stakes corporate lawyer is found dead in a locked vault, Detective Vincent Russo finds no signs of a struggle—only a body crushed by the weight of its own treasures.

Vincent looks for a mechanical failure in the security system, but Malachi identifies a much older pattern: the spiritual suffocation of a man who promised his soul for a seat at the table.

As more of the city's power players are found trapped within their own luxury, Malachi must confront an assassin who turns their victims' worldly commitments into their final, inescapable prison.

The detective follows the paper trail of broken contracts, but the monk follows the trail of broken vows, realizing that the killer is exacting a price that no bank account can cover.

When you have everything, the only thing left to lose is yourself.

The Dead-Weight Vow is the fifth book in the Brother Malachi Thrillers, a gritty, fast-paced Christian suspense series that explores the thin line between justice and redemption. Fans of the psychological intensity in novels by Ted Dekker and Frank Peretti, or the atmospheric, moral weight of authors like Charles Martin and Steven James, will fall in love with the investigative world of Brother Malachi.