The Beast of Bethulia Park

Product Information

The book, due to published by Gracewing later this month, has been described as a “wonderful” psychological thriller underpinned by Catholic themes. It tells the story of a young and idealistic priest who is pitched into a dark world of sexual obsession, danger and death when he becomes embroiled in a campaign to unmask a murderous doctor. This was an excellent read that was challenging subject matter but educational too, within the structure of a thriller that keeps you hooked from start to finish. The archdiocese is, without any doubt, behaving responsibly in protecting the children in its schools from explicit descriptions of sexual, predominantly homosexual, activity. It has a legal obligation to do so. It must uphold the moral and theological precepts of the Catholic Church, which has always taught that sexual intercourse outside marriage between a man and a woman is sinful. It is what it exists to do under its status as a charity. It has behaved entirely as any independent observer would have expected.

The Beast of Bethulia Park - S.P.Caldwell - Piety Stall The Beast of Bethulia Park - S.P.Caldwell - Piety Stall

Set in present-day England, the novel is a wild romp through fistfights, love interests and pursuit of a pair of murderous doctors, and a careful study of human agents navigating the present-day moral landscape.

An equally complex character is Father Baines. The young hospital chaplain struggles to master his desire for something more than friendship with Emerald, the nurse aiding his crusade for truth alongside Jenny. It is a humanising portrait of a genuinely devout individual trying, and largely succeeding, in living up to his religious principles surrounding sex and relationships, a tale that few English novels published this side of the sexual revolution have told well. St. John Paul II wrote that in modern life, “the conscience itself, darkened as it were by such widespread conditioning, is finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish between good and evil in what concerns the basic value of life.”

Sex, Drugs, and Doctor Death ~ The Imaginative Conservative

Set in present-day England, the S. P. Caldwell’s novel is both a wild romp that includes fistfights, love interests, and the pursuit of a pair of murderous doctors, and a careful study of human agents navigating the present-day moral landscape. Church, Literary Converts, Wisdom and Innocence: A Life of G.K. Chesterton, Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile, Old Thunder: A Life of Hilaire Belloc, and Further Up & Further In: Understanding Narnia. Visit his Indeed, for the archdiocese to fail to halt the promotion of such materials on its premises would have been a gross dereliction of duty. But don’t expect the mainstream media to tell you that. Beyond a portrayal of contemporary Britain shot through with literary and historical references, Caldwell also manages to depict the moral world in which both Catholics and non-Catholics find themselves. It is habitat that St. John Paul II famously identified in Evangelium Vitae as a “culture of death” built on a “veritable structure of sin.” If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!

The Beast of Bethulia Park is a gripping psychological novel with Catholic themes but is also a wonderful thriller in its own right. Caldwell is an exciting new voice with a journalist's eye for crime detail and medical research. The priest belongs in the top literary gallery of priest protagonists who are all too human and find themselves up against clerical authority. A major new talent has arrived.” William Cash