Russell E Foster

Now and at the Hour of Our Death Russell E Foster

Spalding O'Connor is nearly killed by a vicious black dog who leaps out of thin air at Spalding's throat as he jogs along the edge of the Notre Dame Campus on a fine Fall afternoon. During his awkward recovery, as he relearns the use of his hands, he discovers a plot on his life arising from a priest at Notre Dame. A priest who seems to be involved in Satanism and who conspires with a computer expert from England. He and his wife go into hiding. Aided by friends, in particular an eccentric old friend, aka The Wasted Sage, he discovers a scam by one of the prominent antagonists in the culture wars among the Notre Dame faculty. He's a Priest who finds leading a satanic cult is deliciously evil and fulfills many fantasies, including sexual ones. The priest and his side-kick are both much too intelligent to be undone by a nobody like Spalding O'Connor. The atmosphere is limestone buildings with large wooden doors, satanists in cowled robes, savage black dogs and innocent, green, midwestern countryside. And virtue, corruption and satanism on the Catholic college campus of Notre Dame. A story of crime and punishment and what it is like to be alive in South Bend, Indiana at the University of Notre Dame Campus; in Morgantown WV, and in Falls Church, VA - in the time soon after 9-11. Here are images which cause the reader to stop, let their eyes go unfocused, and examine images which touch the heart. As the Wasted Sage once said, "Imagine a guy with a house like Doctor Who's Tardis. Magic, bigger on the inside than on the outside. Everything - a whole world - is in his house. All he wants. And the sonuva bitch goes outside and stands on his deck at night and stares up into space. People are like that."