The Mystery of Things

September 18th, 2006

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Book One of The Ashland Grail Cycle

by Debra Murphy

The myth of St. George-and-the-Dragon comes to new and provocative life in this mystery-thriller set in Milwaukee. (Read an excerpt)

FIRST EDITION Hardcover (ISBN 1-59597-000-2):

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PAPERBACK edition, with maps (ISBN 1-59597-002-9):

This is the story of James Ireton, a gifted young Shakespeare scholar haunted by a tragic past and recurring nightmares of a Knight, a Lady and a vicious Dragon. James thinks they’re just dreams, but when two people close to him fall victim in a seemingly motiveless series of brutal murders, James discovers there may be a very real Dragon preying in the shadows of his life. Worse, if he doesn’t find a bit of St. George in himself, the woman he loves may prove the Dragon’s ultimate victim.

"Not since Flannery O’Connor have the workings of grace in a fallen world been so well and realistically reflected."

—Stratford Caldecott, co-editor Second Spring

"…it is a great achievement. I literally could hardly put it down. A true metaphysical thriller, covering every aspect of the culture of death."
—Léonie Caldecott, co-editor Second Spring

The Mystery of Things gives you love and murder, sex and violence, God and the devil, the Virgin and the dragon, plus Catholicism vs. a perverted, self-righteous, hollowed-out image of itself, set against the everyday backdrop of urban and rural Wisconsin. It’s a love story in which loving wrongly does damage, a murder thriller unafraid to probe the juncture of sex and death, and a religious drama which doesn’t sacrifice the natural on the altar of the supernatural….It’s a good story, well-told, Catholic in its trappings but also in its fleshy heart—a heart which is thoroughly, refreshingly human."
—Matthew Lickona, author of Swimming with Scapulars, in a Godspy review

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