Ralph McInerny is a Thomist philosopher of some note; and he also writes thrillers. I’ve not read any of his works of philosophy—I know his name primarily from an introduction he wrote to a new edition of Jacques Maritain’s Introduction to Philosophy—but given that I’m aware of him as a philosopher, I picked up his book Relic of Time when I found it at B&N the other day.

As the book begins, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is stolen from the basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico. For the non-Catholics in the audience, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is said to have appeared miraculously on the cloak of an Aztec peasant, a Christian convert named Juan Diego, in 1531, when very few natives were Christians. It is a particularly sacred relic to the people of Mexico, and indeed to Latin Americans in general, and when the leader of an American militia group claims to have stolen it, the fecal matter hits the proverbial fan. Vincent Traeger, retired CIA agent, is called out of retirement and given the job of finding the image and getting it back to its home, as the border between Mexico and the United States goes up in flames.

First, the good. The book held my attention; I wanted to know what was going to happen, and stayed up too late at night finishing it.

Next, the odd. This is a very Catholic book. Most of the characters are either present or former Catholics, and many of them take the Catholic faith very seriously indeed. Note that this is a book I’d expect to find with the thrillers, and not in the Christian fiction section; but nevertheless, it’s unusual to find a thriller that takes religion seriously. In fact, I don’t think I’ve read anything that compares.

Next, the ugly. There were some weird errors of fact. Some of the characters fly into San Francisco International Airport in a private jet, for a hand-off taking place in the long-term parking lot. McInerny has them fly over Dodger Stadium. Now, it’s quite likely that they’d have flown over Candlestick Park, where the Giants play; and getting the Dodgers and the Giants confused is just too funny. Another character is the Bishop of the Diocese of Orange in Orange County, who refers to himself as the Bishop of Disneyland and Busch Gardens. Now, there used to be a Busch Gardens amusement park in Southern California…at the Anheuser-Busch plant in the middle of the San Fernando Valley, in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. It closed decades ago. I’m at a loss for why McInerny would have thought that there’s a Busch Gardens in Orange County.

But those errors are just silly. The truly bad part is that the action sequence at the end baffled me. There were a lot of people running around and shouting and shooting, and I knew why some of them were there, but not others, and I was really unclear as to why they were doing what they were doing. That might be realistic, I suppose, but it wasn’t all that satisfying. And a number of plot points seemed highly unlikely, even at the time.

I dunno. I enjoyed parts of the book quite a bit, but it just doesn’t quite hang together.