This novel by two American writers, both Oxford-educated, relates an interlocking series of murders set in the university, in an expanded and strikingly more elegant version of Oxford's Jesuit college-Campion Hall (here called Ignatius College). McCarthy and Dohar expertly put all the ingredients together to form a fast-paced, original, beautifully written and slightly grisly narrative of secret societies, undisclosed ambitions and violent conspiracies, wrapped in an elegant tissue of Oxford tradition, ceremony and university sophistication. It is an absorbing tale, and an excellent read!
--Brian Daley, S.J., Professor Emeritus, University of Notre Dame
Fans of Dan Brown's historical thrillers, particularly the bestselling The Da Vinci Code (2003), are likely to best appreciate McCarthy and Dohar's dive into the complex and mysterious history of "the self-proclaimed 'keepers of the Grail.'" The plot's use of the work of Hopkins, a complicated author who often invented his own words, gives readers a clever character to explore...an intriguing thriller to the end.
--Kirkus Reviews
Complex and learned, yet never less than entertaining...A captivating plot.
--Ron Hansen, bestselling author of Atticus
In McCarthy and Dohar's taut thriller, an ex-Jesuit, Myles Dunn, travels back to the venerable University of Oxford, where a deadly accident years earlier cost him his faith. A distressed friend, Father Jeremy Strand, needs help decoding a newly discovered sonnet by 19th-century poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, which may confirm the existence of a lost medieval chalice. Oxford is reeling from a gruesome murder that locals believe is the work of Muslim terrorists. While Dunn puzzles over the poem with university librarian Eva Bashir, another murder occurs, and Strand disappears-possibly the third victim. The duo hurries to unravel the poem's wordplay and symbols to save their friend.
When the narration zeroes in on the main characters, including several chapters from Hopkins's perspective, the plot picks up speed. The authors admirably connect the disparate dots-how does a "dark sonnet" shed light on a secret society from the 1500s and Britain's history of anti-minority rancor?
An array of well-drawn suspects keeps the mystery thrumming...Dark Sonnet is an entertaining ride in the vein of the best historical conspiracy puzzle-thrillers, and its smart characters even playfully acknowledged the assumptions of the genre, when one wonders aloud why the poet resorted to an elaborate ruse when dying and desperate to convey a secret: "Couldn't Hopkins have sent a letter to some trusted soul"? Fans of such mysteries will be glad he didn't.
This Oxford-set puzzle thriller explores secret societies and prejudices past and present.
--BookLife
