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The myth of St. George-and-the-Dragon comes to new and provocative life in this literary mystery-thriller set in Milwaukee.

A gifted young Shakespeare scholar is haunted by a tragic past, a right-wing Catholic cult, and recurring nightmares of a Knight, a Lady and a vicious Dragon. James Ireton thinks they’re just dreams, unconnected to the chaos of his waking life; 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.

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PRAISE FOR The Mystery of Things:

“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

Published by Idylls Press

limited first edition hardcover
ISBN – 10: 1-59597-000-2
ISBN – 13: 978-1-59597-000-8
6″ X 9″ hardcover, 388 pages
Retail price: $21.95, often discounted online

softcover edition
ISBN-10: 1-59597-014-2
ISBN-13: 978-1-59597-004-5
6″ x 9″ softcover, 432 pages
Retail price: $18.95, often discounted online

The Mystery of Things is the first book in The Ashland Grail Cycle, a planned series of novels inspired by Shakespeare, Arthurian romance, and the modern mystery novel.

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