{"id":18204,"date":"2023-05-15T19:51:09","date_gmt":"2023-05-15T23:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=18204"},"modified":"2023-05-15T19:51:09","modified_gmt":"2023-05-15T23:51:09","slug":"the-redemptive-return-by-j-r-and-susan-mathis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=18204","title":{"rendered":"‘The Redemptive Return,’ by J.R. and Susan Mathis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Book Number Three<\/strong> in the Father Tom Mysteries is The Redemptive Return<\/a><\/em>. This review ought to be taken with a grain of salt, though, because my emotional reaction to it probably colors my judgment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Father Tom Greer, as you may recall from my previous reviews, is a priest who entered the ministry late in life, having been a husband and a widower already. Before that, he was engaged to Helen Parr who (by one of those coincidences which are a little too common in this series) is now a police detective in the town of Myerton, Pennsylvania, where Father Tom also serves, in his own way. The fact that they are still attracted to one another is a complication in both their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day Tom gets a call from his sister Sonya, with whom he rarely communicates. It sounds like she\u2019s running away from someone, and she desperately wants Tom to find something (he can\u2019t hear what) and help somebody named Chrystal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom isn\u2019t sure what to do about this call. Sonya is a drug addict (supposedly in recovery now), and he\u2019s gotten such calls from her before. They\u2019ve never meant anything. He lets it go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly thereafter he hears from his mother. Sonya is dead. Her body was found in a dumpster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s all his fault.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom doesn\u2019t want to go home, with all its unresolved issues, but he knows he must. What surprises him is that Helen shows up next to him on the plane, having taken personal leave to help him out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of my own personal history, I found The Redemptive Return<\/em> hard to read. So I\u2019m incapable of saying whether this element (dysfunctional family dynamics) of the story is handled well or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it seemed to me the book suffered from what I\u2019m sure others before me have called \u201cBond Villain Syndrome,\u201d where the villain pauses long enough in the process of killing the hero to explain his\/her criminal genius at length \u2013 giving the cavalry time to show up and save the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, my big problem with the book was the resolution (at this point in the ongoing saga) of Father Tom\u2019s relationship problem with Helen. An arrangement is worked out with the approval of his bishop. I\u2019m not a Catholic, but I found it improbable in the extreme. Both ecclesiastically and psychologically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I won\u2019t pan The Redemptive Return<\/em>, but I think it\u2019s relatively weak. Readable, though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Book Number Three in the Father Tom Mysteries is The Redemptive Return. This review ought to be taken with a grain of salt, though, because my emotional reaction to it probably colors my judgment. Father Tom Greer, as you may recall from my previous reviews, is a priest who entered the ministry late in life, … Continue reading ‘The Redemptive Return,’ by J.R. and Susan Mathis<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[3435,3434,4701],"class_list":["post-18204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-father-tom-greer","tag-j-r-mathis","tag-the-redemptive-return"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18204"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18206,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18204\/revisions\/18206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}