"This Side of Jordan" (Kassel)

I just finished This Side of Jordan by Bill Kassel, having read his early novel with many of the same main characters, Holy Innocents. I'd liked the earlier book, and wanted to give this one a go, looking for something "lighter" and a mystery after reading Dostoyevsky's The Idiot.  

I enjoyed This Side of Jordan and found, as I had with the earlier book, the characters appealing - especially the music minister and protagonist, Alan Kemp, and Father Karl. There were some nice twists and some interesting secondary characters. Like the earlier novel, this one dealt with an issue that is confronting the Church - in this case, homosexuality (the earlier one dealt with abortion)

The writing is clear, and the pacing, for the most part, fine.

All to the good.

But I was not totally satisfied with this novel.

The dialogue was sometimes not believable - there were a couple of points where I found myself asking who really talks like that? The homily and the psychiatrist's explanation of homosexuality, while both rang true, seemed more like essays than things a person would say. 

The ending - I won't give it away - I think violates one of G.K. Chesterton's rules for fair play in mystery stories.

Starting us off with the bodies, then flashing back to the events that led up to the deaths, is fine in a mystery, but I thought it was handled a little awkwardly in this book. 

There were also some small typos - one that really stood out was when in this "Catholic" novel "altar" was misspelled as "alter."

I got the sense this was a self-published work.

My biggest problem is that good Catholic fiction should be good fiction that is imbued with a sense of the faith. It seems  however, that Kassel did not write a book that teaches a moral/theological lesson, he wrote a book to teach a moral/theological lesson. The distinction is important.

I found it interesting that he wrote two novels with some of the same characters, as if he had hoped to write a series of books, but then wrote no more. Perhaps he sensed the weakness in this book, or maybe  he ran out of theological bogeymen to beat. Or maybe after 15 years he'll get the bug again for these  characters. 

If he had written another book in this series, I would have been willing to read it. Despite the flaws of this one, I still enjoyed it. 

So I give this one a tentative thumbs up. I suspect someone of a traditional Catholic sensibility would appreciate it. 

Pax et bonum