Times of Distress

MYSTERY ROMANCE AND SUSPENSEFr Jos van Engelen, a Dutch missionary priest, stationed in New Guinea before World War II, is recalled to Holland to help his superior general combat suspected ideological subversion within his fraternity. He arrives in March 1940. After the Nazis invade Holland, British intelligence draws him into covert operations. It all goes horribly wrong. He flees from betrayal and the murder of trusted colleagues to Amsterdam, where he goes to ground. When the Nazis fire on the crowds gathered on Dam square in May 1945, he saves a young woman and her baby from being crushed in the stampede. It is the start of an unspoken relationship with the Strict Reformed Truus van den Donker and a deadly tussle with her brutish occultist husband.After the war, he has a running conflict with those he suspects of undermining the order’s ways and betraying him. The conflict comes to a head during and after the Second Vatican Council, with the conflict settling on the council’s document on the liturgy. The strife results in more measures to get him out of the way. At the same time, he must confront sinister occultist forces that want him dead. The unspoken love of the woman he can never have keeps his spirits from being crushed.This is a story of unswerving faith and commitment against diabolical forces Fr Jos and Truus could hardly conceive.The CONCILIAR SERIES will consist of eight connected but stand-alone stories. The themes of the ‘Goddess’, neo-paganism, the occult, and Gnosticism are threads through the stories. The cultural revolution the 1960s and 1970s (1965-1975) and the Second Vatican Council form the background. The author who lived through those times recreates its atmosphere. Indeed, the stories present a social history of the period.