| The Binding |
Faith is a cry for connection, and each life is a tale of links forged
or bonds broken. For three men thrown unexpectedly together,
each day dawns as an opportunity to create a new life and each
night brings the memories of things to atone for. Each has a
violent past, and each has come to the cold shore of Lake Ontario
to search for some peace.
Dolan has been many things: a Marine, a specialist in quick
reaction force tactics for maximum security prisons. Now he’s
seeking to put that life behind him. An old service friend is now
the abbot of a small monastery. Dolan shows up at the Abbey
gate with the first hard blast of a winter snow. He’s warned that the
monastery is no place to hide. Dolan knows that, but hopes that
he can find himself in a place where nobody would look for him.
Jeff Matthews is an Episcopal Priest. He grew up in the area, a
bright kid with musical talent who wanted nothing more than to
leave. When he was sixteen, an older man came and rented his
mother’s barn. He taught Jeff watercraft and drafting and how to
work wood. He shared some old memories and what he thought
was wisdom. He made Jeff care. And when the old man committed
an elaborate suicide, it marked Jeff forever. Twenty years later he
is an earnest priest, caring for a congregation and serving as the
chaplain for the county jail. But he harbors a dark secret.
Guzman is a leg-breaker developing something that is a real
liability in his line of work: a conscience. He’s got one last
assignment to complete, the price of being allowed to walk away
from the crime family he serves. It’s a simple job: the elimination of
a charismatic and once popular evangelist whose new call to
reject the material world is proving an embarrassment to the
profitable national organization he is affiliated with.
When the local Sheriff seeks Dolan’s help with a local religious
sect, Dolan is drawn into the investigation of the most hideous of
acts: the ritual killing of a child by his own father. What would
compel a parent to such a deed? Dolan looks to the sect’s leader,
Brother Micah, for explanations. Micah had been a wildly
successful star of a lucrative televangelism organization, and is
now a wild-eyed charismatic figure. And a murder suspect. Dolan,
a man struggling with questions of faith and its hold on us,
explores the belief of the sect members, sure of their identity as
God’s elect, waiting the imminent arrival of the End of Days. He
works with Jeff Matthews, the prison chaplain, to unravel the
twisted ideas that caused the murder. And as both men are drawn
deeper into the investigation, they learn of how ill health, despair,
and a longing for the life to come can lead people down dark
paths.
But evil takes many forms, and the notoriety of the crime leads to
television coverage. A newly paroled convict glimpses Dolan’s
face on the TV screen. They have met before, and the convict’s
smoldering rage burns brighter as he travels toward Dolan, bent
on revenge. And hovering on the periphery of the TV news
cameras and crowds surround brother Micah is Guzman, looking
for his chance to strike the preacher down and his ticket out of
town.
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| The Binding |
