Upbeat and pious, but the relentless cheer wears thin.
A follow-up to A Miracle for St. Cecilia’s (2002) is all heart and hope: miracles happen, faith is rewarded, people are ever ready to help in a dizzying mix of challenges: mobsters, foreclosure, cancer, hit and run.
All-is-possible-with-God seems to be the subtext of this unapologetic faith-centered tale, set again in friendly Dorsetville, that begins as ailing Sister Regina Francis dies while visiting Medjugorge in Bosnia. The Virgin Mary has been appearing there for nearly two decades, and the good Sister, just before she dies, is handed a rosary—it glows—by one of the three villagers who first saw Mary. The Sister who’d accompanied Regina to Bosnia brings the rosary back to Connecticut, but not before Bob Peterson, a fellow pilgrim and Dorsetvillian, picks up the rosary and his painful arm is cured. Also back in Dorsetville, builder Barry has been swindled by a con man and is being threatened by two who claim to be the Mafia. His best friend Chester has terminal cancer, and Nellie, a middle-aged teacher, is being courted by Harry, who owns the town's favorite gathering spot, the Country Kettle. Nellie is also worried that she might lose the house her family has owned for nearly two centuries. When Father James of St. Cecilia’s is run over by the speeding mobsters, the only witness is Molly, a homeless person new in town. Then the terrible young Galligan twins set a fire in the church from which Bob Peterson’s daughter is rescued with the help of the glowing rosary. As Nellie secretly takes on extra work and begins writing a children's story, Harry worries that she's seeing another man, since she has so little time for him. Revelations, marvels, and miracles—Nellie finds an agent, who just happens to be the father of a new student, and he sells her book immediately for mega bucks—are normal in lucky Dorsetville.
Upbeat and pious, but the relentless cheer wears thin.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2003
ISBN: 0-670-03229-8
Page Count: 275
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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