Review: FPW gets religion
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 17, 2012
Having enjoyed my way through all of his major works, I am now filling in the remaining gaps in my reading of FP Wilson.  This one, "Virgin", was originally published in 1996 under the pseudonym, Mary Elizabeth Murphy. I have no clue why he used a nom de plume, except possibly that it is rather different from everything else that he had written to date.  Not horror, not SF, but your basic religious fantasy.  The eponymous Virgin is, indeed, Mary, the mother of Jesus, the one straight out of the standard Christian theology.This is nothing like Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code or any of his other novels.  Although the characters move around a lot, it's not anything like a treasure hunt, or, at least after the early sections of the novel, a mystery to be solved.  It's worth pointing out that it was published long before Brown sold millions of copies books dealing with supposed hidden truths of the Catholic Church. Anyway, the premise is interesting (as it is with all FP Wilson writings that I have seen), and to my knowledge is one of the first mainstream "what if it were true" novels dealing with the iconography of ChristianityAlthough published well after many of his blockbuster novels that made FPW a household name (at least among horror aficionados, Virgin has the feel of an "early" novel.  I'm not sure how to describe it more specifically than that.  It just didn't feel as solid as most of FPW's other works.  The characters of Father Dan and Sister Carrie are well enough developed FPW's usually are), and their early relationship is is believable.  Later developments between the two, well, less so.  Supporting characters were also three-dimensional with interesting backstories, particularly the mysterious Israeli agent who seems to have a special agenda with respect to the relic.For me the biggest disappointment in this novel was the ending.  After a more than reasonable build-up, the last 20% of the novel, especially the literal deus ex machina ending just left me feeling cheated.  As if FPW had jumped the proverbial (pun intended) shark.  I just didn't find the sequence of events believable or compelling or even logical (if anything based in religious mythology can be said to be logical).  The ending felt rushed, and cheap compared to the set-up, and to the endings to the dozens of other FP Wilson novels that I've read.Perhaps it's in part because I'm not a "true believer", and have always had trouble understanding how so many so easily accept the whole Christian mythos when it seems so full of logical flaws and impossibilities.  Anyway, this one didn't do it for me.  It was OK, but not nearly in the same league as the Repairman Jack or Adversary Cycle series, or many of his other parts of the Secret History of the World (e.g., Black Wind, published in 1988, being a prime example of FP Wilson at his best.)J.M. Tepper