The legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller seems to have risen in the Middle Ages, and is today considered entirely folklore. Possibly inspired by the story of Oedipus, it tells of a young man of noble family cursed to commit an appalling, shameful crime. As with Oedipus, his very efforts to make the crime impossible actually bring it about, but Christians added the element of redemption, a demonstration that no crime is beyond the mercy of God.

Author and clergyman Walter Wangerin Jr. has written Saint Julian, a version of the legend (published 2003) in his own dreamy, poetic style. It’s not his best work, but it’s worth reading for those with eyes to see.

Medieval Christians believed that Julian lived at the beginning of the Christian era, but Wangerin places it in the epoch that produced it—somewhere in the Middle Ages, apparently during the Crusades. His book combines the classic style of the hagiographical tale with the allegory of Pilgrim’s Progress. Julian is a sort of Everyman, or Everychristian. Born to many advantages, blessed with physical beauty and rich natural gifts, he falls—almost innocently, one might say—into the sin of pride, seeing no need to curb his desires. His immoderation leads to a great sin, which brings upon him the curse of the tale. And when he commits his crime, it is again because of his intemperance. What follows is a long journey to discover the miracle of grace, a journey in which God is always guiding, generally unseen, along hard and painful roads.

Saint Julian lacks the emotional peaks and valleys that broke so many of our hearts in Wangerin’s greatest novel, the delightful The Book of the Dun Cow. In his attempt to mimic the style of medieval chroniclers, the author starts the book slowly, and probably loses a lot of readers along the way. The very universality of his themes tends to make the characters one-dimensional, like figures in a Gothic church painting.

Fans of Wangerin will enjoy Saint Julian, but not consider it his finest work. Those new to him would do best to start with The Book of the Dun Cow.

Minnesota author John Sandford (real name John Camp) has established a nice little franchise with his Lucas Davenport Prey novels. Davenport is a Minnesota state cop who also happens to be a millionaire. He enjoys driving his Porsche fast with the siren on. As skillful as the character’s handling of his car has been the author’s own steering of the series, keeping out of both the left and the right ditches on a pretty winding road.

The early Davenport books portrayed a cop who was also a designer of computer games. He used the same skills he employed in game design to out-think the most devious and insane of criminals, and more than once he applied a little private justice in cases where he was confident the courts would let a dangerous killer back on the streets. In that period, Davenport seemed to be gradually losing his own grip on sanity, torn between duty to the job and his personal commitment to protecting the public.

Sandford deftly saved Davenport’s sanity by having him meet and marry a female surgeon. As Davenport acquired not only a wife, but a foster daughter and a baby son, he grew happier and more stable. Unfortunately, he ran the risk of getting a little dull. The old edge seemed to be going.

With Wicked Prey, Sandford has found a solution to that problem too, bringing in another legal corner-cutter, close enough to Davenport to make his world perhaps even more dangerous and morally ambiguous than before. Continue reading Wicked Prey, by John Sandford →