SAN FRANCISCO, October 15, 2013 – Riots, terrorist attacks, and neo-Nazi
violence take center stage in the debut novel Ceremony of Innocence by Dorothy Cummings
McClean.
Ceremony of Innocence is set in modern-day Germany, where journalist
Catriona McClelland has seen it all while covering the contemporary European scene for a Catholic
news organization. Keeping herself above the political fray in her professional life, she has also
managed to keep herself from personal entanglements. Things come to a head when her boyfriend
Dennis, frustrated with a lack of commitment, leaves her for Suzy Davis, an idealistic young
Canadian who is involved with a left-wing protest movement. But when Suzy is murdered . . . who is
complicit and who is innocent?
Ripped from the headlines, Ceremony of
Innocence is a very contemporary novel of Europe on the edge of social breakdown. Train stations
are bombed and migrants targeted for violence as journalists and other tastemakers watch from their
positions of privilege.
Dorothy Cummings McLean’s realistic narrative does not describe the
feats of heroes. Rather, it unnervingly lays bare the way religious faith and moral reasoning can be
easily manipulated and compromised.
Piers Paul Read, the author of Alive: The
Story of the Andes Survivors, praises Ceremony of Innocence, saying, “I highly recommend
this enjoyable, interesting and well-written novel that gives rare insight into present-day
Germany.”
Ceremony of Innocence is “[a] true joy to read. In a literary world
increasingly distended with stale predictability, it’s so energizing to read something genuinely
original and vibrant,” says Michael Coren, TV Host and author of Heresy: Ten Lies They
Spread About Christianity.
Richard Greene, Ph.D., Professor of English,
University of Toronto, calls it “[a]n exciting debut novel. It is well-paced, intelligent, and
suspenseful. In the style of Graham Greene, Dorothy Cummings McLean has placed her characters on the
knife-edge between terror and salvation.”
Ceremony of Innocence is “[a] terrifying
voyage into a sinister underworld of political extremism and spiritual confusion. It is replete with
dark secrets, betrayals and above all, damaged young people struggling to find a sense of purpose
amid the moral chaos of near-contemporary Europe. The novel’s stunning climax will leave the reader
reeling with shock,” says Fiorella De Maria, author of Poor Banished Children.
“Dorothy Cummings McLean opens a disturbing window into a parallel world where twenty-first
century Catholics walk the line between the ceremony and the reality of innocence. Amidst hedonism,
Neo-Nazism, banal leftism and militant Islam lurk murder and treachery with only the merest hint of
redemption. Bewildering and exhilarating by turns,” says Alan Fimister, Ph.D., International
Theological Institute.
Stuart Reid, former editor of The Spectator, says Ceremony
of Innocence is “[a] fast-paced thriller in which Terrorist International wages war against
Europe, America and Christian civilization. All human life is here – drugs and degenerate music;
neo-Nazis, enigmatic spooks and terrified Muslim immigrants; bombs, quarrelling lovers and scheming
Eurotrash – and, underpinning everything is sorrow, contrition and hope.”
Dorothy Cummings McLean is a Canadian writer living abroad. She has been a regular contributor to The Catholic Register (Toronto). Her first book, Seraphic Singles: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Single Life, is a popular work of nonfiction.
Dorothy Cummings McLean is available for interviews about this book.
To request a review copy or an
interview with Dorothy Cummings McLean please contact:
Rose Trabbic, Publicist, Ignatius Press
at (239)867-4180 or [email protected]
Product Facts:
Title: CEREMONY OF INNOCENCE
A Novel
Author: Dorothy Cummings McLean
Release
Date: October 2013
Length: 189 pages
Price: $19.95
ISBN: 978-1-58617-731-7 •
Hardcover
Order: 1-800-651-1531 • www.ignatius.com
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