Reed Stubblefield had a hip injury that leads him for asking for a leave from work as a teacher. His brother Dan arranged a cabin for him to stay, cool-down a bit and make a book about Aristotle. When he arrived at the cabin, he noticed a bunch of people coming out of their busses with wheelchairs and canes. Puzzled, he asked the cabin owner why so many guests this season. The owner said they’re here to be healed by the Bleeder, the stigmatic priest named Fr. Ray. The phone ring unexpectedly, “This is father Ray, I heard that you’re working on a book about Aristotle, I have some books that can help you with that”. He rejected the invitation and got mad at Dan for arranging such, he entertain the fact that Dan had more elaborate plans than this, getting Reed healed by this so called Bleeder.
Since Reed had no choice, what’s the harm on having a friend with this priest? Fr. Ray allocate some time for them to meet and talk about books, their friendship bloomed. Dan was coming for a lunch with his brother Reed and Fr. Ray, the unexpected happens, Fr. Ray said that Dan got into a car accident. When they arrived at the site, Dr. Rashidi proclaimed that his brother is already dead, he suddenly noticed Fr. Ray rushing to his dead brother putting his hands on its chest, after a while Dan coughed, a sign of life.
Good Friday, Reed attends a mass to see Fr. Ray heals people. Fr. Ray entered the church with a big cross on his shoulder, stopped at middle isle, dropped the cross and suddenly falls down like a tree. Blood all-over his hands like life is being leaked out of it. The Death of Fr. Ray puts this small town into a sudden shock on why, how and who did this to Fr. Ray. Reed now is being blamed for the death of Fr. Ray, they believe that Fr. Ray bleeds to revive Dan, with all the facts against him, how can he solve this?
Prior to my review, I want to clear one thing about my religion, actually I’m not a Catholic and I don’t believe on such thing as stigmata. Forgive me if you find the totality or a part of my review a bit subjective.
From where I am seated, I can see two different stories of the same person being viewed by one perspective which is by Reed’s. The death of Fr. Ray splits the whole story into two, yet still connected without messing the story-line. A transition from a religious-mystery tone into a crime-scene-mystery tone works well with this book. The first-person-view really helps on making the connection between the book and the reader especially on some religious-thinking of main character, Reed. When you get the hung on reading this book and reached somewhere near the end, you’ll get surprised on how, who and why Fr. Ray died. What a shocking revelation that can push you to say “What the …..” and drop your jaw on the floor.
This book is for those full-pledged Catholics and some mystery-type reader for a new taste of suspense. One thing good about this book is it will leave some questions for the readers to answer through their Faith like “Does stigmatic people exists”, “If they exists, is it true that you can be healed by them?” and “what happen to Reed, is he now a Catholic?”
There are some minor flaws I’ve found on this one, some loose ends that needs to be tied up. Like, what happen to Manny Garcia? Does the Ascension group exist? Or it’s just a way to mislead the reader or maybe, maybe this book is going to have a sequel?
Well crafted book.
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