By the Book

	TRR photo by Mary Greene Author Tom Kane holds a copy of his newly published mystery novel, “The Mark of Gnosis.”

Faith renewed in ‘The Mark of Gnosis’

A guest review

By MARY GREENE

Picture a young boy wearing a robe and standing at the edge of a ravine in central Wyoming. The air is still. He is carrying a garbage bag. As a postulant at the nearby Trappist abbey, he has not spoken for weeks, but he yells out now in fear, calling for help at what he glimpses at the bottom of the ravine.

A monk is there, dead, the second in three years to die under mysterious circumstances. The abbot is summoned, along with a number of the brothers. “There is evil at work in this abbey,” whispers the abbot, even as he is trying to calm the members of his community.

So begins “The Mark of Gnosis” by Tom Kane, a Narrowsburg resident and Director of Marketing and Community Affairs at The River Reporter.

This exciting tale is a great read, replete with mysterious midnight comings and goings among the monks; an excitable and loquacious librarian who punctuates his every declaration with a bark of laughter; an on-site herbarium, run by Brother Valentinian, where dastardly poisons could be devised; a bedridden monk who may or may not be possessed; and a mysterious old hermit who is also an exorcist, who could hold the key to the “evil doings” the abbot so rightly spoke of.

Adding to the fun are the policemen who have been assigned to the case. Mickey Maguire is a cop who has had his fair share of tragedies and, along with Detective Lieutenant Emil “Dutch” Elmauer, does a sensitive job of scoping out the abbey and interviewing the monks (who are, needless to say, unused to the presence of hard-boiled officers of the law). What deepens the story, providing a sub-plot every bit as riveting as the murder, is that Maguire is an ex-Roman Catholic priest who has lost his faith and who uses the experience of solving the murder at the abbey to slowly regain it.

There is romance in the novel, too, in the shapely form of Detective Lieutenant Anna Waters, assigned to assist Dutch and Maguire in the case.

Maguire’s character may be deemed, in part, as autobiographical in that the author spent 11 years in the seminary and then served another 10 as a Roman Catholic priest. For a time, he lived within a religious community. Kane left the priesthood during the Vietnam War era after becoming disillusioned with the punitive teachings and harsh judgmental attitude of the church.

Kane says now, “There is much in the tradition and ritual of Roman Catholicism that I admire. The ritual of the Catholic Church is ancient and contains a rich store of sacred and spiritual treasures that can inspire and elevate. My quarrel is chiefly with the leadership of the church” who “build empires to themselves and amass power and wealth for the church at the expense of the faithful.”

As an ex-priest, Kane is familiar with the many rituals and dispensations that take place in a Trappist abbey, and much of the pleasure of the book is derived from the authentic feel of the abbey and its monks. Kane has struggled, as well, with his faith in God, and so can depict Maguire’s struggle with a piercing honesty and compassion.

Kane was born in Philadelphia and lived and worked in New York City for 25 years. He moved to the Upper Delaware Valley where, for the last few years, he has been “on an intense journey back to spirituality.”

“The Mark of Gnosis” is an on-line publication, published by Xlibris. It can be purchased in handsome paperback form ($18.69 plus shipping and handling) or as an e-book ($8.00 plus shipping and handling) by contacting Xlibris Publishing, 436 Walnut Street, 11th Floor, Philadelphia, PA, 19106-3703; or calling 888/795-4274 (Option 5); or online at www.xlibris.com/bookstore. The paperback version of “The Mark of Gnosis” will also be available at the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance Valley Artists Holiday Sale, opening on November 24, Main Street, Narrowsburg.