Tuesday, June 18, 2013

THE BONE CHURCH a novel by Victoria Dougerty


The Bone Church

After secretly witnessing the murder of his father at the hands of a Nazi thug, Czech hockey star Felix Andel sets his sights on revenge.  Soon Felix and his half-Jewish lover, Magdalena Ruza, become embroiled in a Prague Underground plot to assassinate the man who ordered the hit on his father:  Hitler’s nefarious Minister of Propaganda, Josef Goebbels.

But in the surreal and paranoid underworld of wartime Prague, Felix and Magdalena must forge unlikely alliances in their quest—with a mysterious Roman Catholic Cardinal, a reckless sculptor intent on making a big political statement, and a gypsy with a dangerous sex life. 

When the assassination attempt against Goebbels goes wildly wrong, fierce historical winds blow the lovers in separate directions.  Critically wounded and slipping into a fog of extraordinary visions, Felix’s destiny is sealed at The Bone Church, a mystical pilgrimage site on the outskirts of Prague where he experiences a religious conversion.  Magdalena, abandoned by the Cardinal who promised her safe passage out of the country, goes deep into hiding lest she be rounded up and transported to Auschwitz.  

Twelve years pass. 

Felix, now a Jesuit priest, is an emissary for people in trouble.  From Vienna, he runs a Vatican-financed operation that smuggles prominent dissidents out of Soviet-occupied countries.  Only this time, it’s Magdalena who needs his help.  After a long exile in various political prisons, she turns up in a bleak corner of the Czech countryside – disgraced, impoverished and struggling to stay alive.  Felix’s superior in Rome, the Cardinal who betrayed Magdalena, reluctantly dispatches him to collect her. 

 With government security forces closing in around them as they run for the border, the émigré priest is forced to confront his past…and the fragility of his faith.  

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