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The Mystery of Things
I will once again be participating in the Southern Oregon Book & Author Fair on Saturday, November 21 in the 2nd floor ballroom of the Ashland Springs Hotel in beautiful downtown. Ashland. I’ll be signing and selling copies of The Mystery of Things, chatting with my fellow regional authors and book lovers, and generally enjoying a day of bookish kanoodling.
Though this is (if memory serves) my fourth time round with the book fair, it will be the first time as an Ashlander, which has allowed me to participate more with behind-the-scenes preparations. Specifically, I’ve been building the book fair’s new website, which is where you should go for more info if you’re thinking of attending!
With something like sixty authors in attendance, It will be a great way to start your Christmas shopping for all those book lovers among your friends and family!
Though in some quarters the exposure of Fr. Marcial Maciel as a religious leader leading a scandalous double life comes across as sudden, unexpected, and shocking, the fact is that rumors to that effect have been swirling for many years, often in the context of a small legion, if you’ll forgive the pun, of ex-Legionaries who have left their former spiritual home under a cloud of innuendo. Some of these ex-pats have charged, and continue to charge, that the Legionaries of Christ (along with lay affiliate, Regnum Christi) is something approaching a cult; or at least a problematic “cult of personality.”
Stratford Caldecott has written a brief but alarmingly gratifying review of The Mystery of Things in the most recent issue (number eight) of Second Spring: A Journal of Faith and Culture:
“Labelled ‘Book One of the Ashland Grail Cycle’, this is a stunning debut novel in the modern thriller genre, complete with sex and violence. It is hard to imagine that an orthodox Catholic could have achieved such a thing without disgracing herself, but Debra Murphy seems to have pulled it off. Not since Flannery O’Connor have the workings of grace in a fallen world been so well and realistically reflected.
“Set in modern Milwaukee (which may seem strange to some, given the hint of a Grail connection on the cover), the story concerns a gifted young Shakespeare scholar who becomes the suspect in a series of horrible murders. Once started, it is hard to put down, but you finish the book uplifted rather than depressed. Leonie Caldecott describes it as ‘a true metaphysical thriller, covering every aspect of the culture of death.’ “
Keep up with Debra! 
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