The Book of Hours, by T. Davis Bunn.
New York: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2000.
$12.99 - 167 pages.

Depressed by the death of his wife and fatigued and ill with a tropical disease, Brian Blackstone reluctantly arrives in the English village of Knightsbridge to claim an inheritance. His claim to Castle Keep, the manor house which Sarah, his wife, has left him, is only temporary, for the enormous death taxes owed on the house are far beyond his means to pay.

Brian quickly finds himself caught up in the life and daily intrigues of the village. Cecilia Lyons, a new physician who is herself half-American and who rents her cottage from Brian’s estate, battles him over the upcoming sale of the house, then slowly becomes his friend. Hardy Snead, a local realtor who plans to buy the property for its commercial value once it comes on the block, does his best throughout the story to thwart Brian’s attempts to hold on to Castle Keep. Arthur and Gladys Wainwright, two long-time tenants of Castle Keep, add some comic touches to the story. Joe Eades, a local handyman who understands some of the mysteries of Castle Keep, plays the villain always lurking on the fringes of the plot.

Add a deceased aunt who has left behind some mysterious clues for Brian regarding the manor’s treasures, and you have the basic framework for T. Davis Bunn’s The Book Of Hours.

Bunn’s book falls into the category known as Christian fiction, and though it seems somewhat stronger than many other works in this genre — the writing is solid, and the story moves at a nice pace — The Book Of Hours nevertheless displays the weaknesses of this type of fiction. The characters seem chopped with dull scissors from a cardboard template labelled caricatures. Hardy Snead, for example, who has the perfect name for a villain, lacks only a black cape and a moustache to twirl to fit the image of the wicked landlord made popular in the old silent movies. The elderly Wainwrights with their tart tongues and stout hearts are pulled straight from second-rate television shows. Cecilia Lyons, the physician who soon becomes involved with Brian, is the hard-nosed, mechanically skilled, yet ultimately compassionate and tender sort of woman whom we have seen portrayed in hundreds of novels, movies, and television shows in the last 25 years.

The plot, too, often seems as concocted and false as the characters. Why would Sarah’s aunt risk sending Brian on a treasure hunt, leaving him mysterious clues yet knowing full well that if he failed he would never find the treasure? How has Brian made his way financially the two years since his wife’s death? What was the point of living in places like Sri Lanka? Would he really have waited so long to take possession of Castle Keep? Does Joe Eades really believe that he can acquire the treasure of the old house?

Finally, we are left to ponder the moral implications of such books. Brian — he seems, incidentally, the one character to run against type, a sad, weak sort of man who leaves us wondering why Sarah ever saw fit to marry him — ends the story with an enormous manor house, with a king’s ransom in treasure, and with Doctor Cecilia as the new love of his life. The message of the book is popular today among certain believers; the belief that God gives great rewards here on earth to those who follow his ways. It is an odd, ugly, and twisted theology, the theology of the huckster and the carnival barker, for as both the New Testament and early Church history demonstrate over and over again, Christ more often than not rewards those who follow after him with hardship, poverty, ridicule and martyrdom. When asked how to attain eternal life, Jesus does not tell the rich young man — “Go, and put your money into sheep bellies and camel futures.” He tells the young man to give up all that He has and follow after Him.

One final note: we learn at the end of The Book Of Hours that Brian Blackstone plans to turn the ancient chapel which he has discovered into a museum. The irony of such a move, of turning a place of living faith into a museum, was apparently lost on both the author and publisher of this book.

(Minick owns Saints and Scholars bookstore on Main Street in Waynesville.)

 

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