by Linden MacIntyre. Father Duncan MacAskill is the last person you want showing up on your doorstep if you are a priest. His job as the "Exorcist" is to clean up delicate situations (a pregnant housekeeper; allegations of child abuse) involving wayward priests. When his bishop sends him to a little town on Cape Breton Island to get him out of the way of an impending abuse scandal, Duncan discovers that he himself may be part of the reason a young man commits suicide. Of course, the attractive priest does garner much attention from the lonely village women. He grapples with his own past and his alcoholism while trying to decide whether to remain a man of the cloth. Winner of the 2009 Giller Prize, a prestigious Canadian literary award, this debut novel by a Canadian broadcast journalist is slow to start but picks up as the story moves along. It accurately describes the pastoral setting of the Canadian Maritimes and the sense of place and history the residents there possess. This story, however, is not geographically dependent and could have been placed anywhere and still be relevant. Verdict Although the author's too obvious attempt to humanize the clergy is a bit overdone, this drama about the priestly betrayal of Catholic faith in Canada is of good literary quality and will appeal to fans of literary fiction. --Library Journal
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