Ex-cop and security company owner Greg Stern, who’s at a Zen retreat in California doing penance for cheating on his wife, winds up investigating a murder in this superior closed-circle whodunit from Feye (Private Universe). To the shock of Stern, his fellow attendees, and the Buddhist monks, nuns, and students residing at the retreat, its leader, Abbess Clarita, is found strangled. The remote location and the nature of the surrounding terrain make it all-but-impossible that an outsider could have committed the crime. Meanwhile, a valuable Japanese wooden statue of the Buddha Amitabha goes missing. Stern’s probing reveals multiple potential motives for Clarita’s killer. In a prior life, she provided vital evidence against a violent L.A. gang, whose members vowed revenge, and her opposition to developers looking to buy the land the Zen center occupies made her further enemies. Feye keeps readers guessing en route to the satisfying reveal. Further books featuring Stern would be welcome. (Self-published)