Uninspiring story with a not-so-hidden agenda.
Have yourself a conservative little Christmas.
Vaughan, a prolific Christian author of manly historicals and military novels under various pseudonyms (including female ones, for his category romances), takes up several ultra-right and back-to-the-Bible causes in this low-key holiday tale. Should the Inuits and just plain white folks of Point Hope, Alaska (which might sit atop undiscovered reserves of oil), believe the scaremongering of Clay Berber, an untrustworthy, tree-hugging, pointy-headed activist who once fought to have the Ten Commandments removed from a county courthouse? Our hero, Galen Scobey, steps up to the podium with the real facts: among them, the infamous Valdez oil tanker disaster had no lasting measurable effects upon Alaskan wildlife or environment. Galen, a single father to young Nels, is still haunted by the memory of his dead but much-loved wife Julia, who loved Christmas. And he’s troubled by his own responsibility for an oil-search accident that killed two New Guinea natives several years ago. Heck, that pretty little teacher, Ellie Springer, isn’t going to charm him out of his holiday blues by holding a Christmas pageant at the Tikigaq school. And hasn’t she ever heard of the separation of church and state? He won’t let Nels perform. The dispute ends up in court, where a muddled defense avers that since the government is supporting “faith in atheism” by upholding the law, there’s nothing wrong with celebrating a religious holiday in a publicly funded school system. What a miracle: the befuddled judge agrees in an unlikely ruling on behalf of the pageant. What a hero: Galen, lost in a storm on the tundra, follows a brilliant star back to Point Hope and joins the rejoicing townsfolk.
Uninspiring story with a not-so-hidden agenda.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-765-30947-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...
Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.
Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: he’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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