Customer Reviews

Flying To Tombstone

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Although Flying to Tombstone is about a young Episcopal priest in southeastern Arizona, and is organized around the pre-Easter season of Lent, this book is far from a pious or tedious `churchy' story. The author uses the structure of the church season to advance his plot in a steady and exciting fashion. Border issues in southern Arizona are a painful reality, and the struggle for justice and compassion is something that thoughtful people of faith are asked to enter. The church-member characters of the book, well-drawn and colorful, range from those who would extend compassion to those entering our country illegally, to those who take the law into their own hands in acts of vicious hatred. Jerry Hanning, the priest who ministers to two small congregations in Tombstone and Bisbee, is dealing with his own personal challenges of a recently-dead young wife and raising a daughter on his own. However, he must minister to the diverse elements of his congregations, witnessing to what he sees as the mandate of the Christian gospel when faced with the crisis of decent people crossing the border illegally, and the fear of citizens who see this as a potential for social upheaval. The author deals well with the gamut of emotions arising from this conflict: love, death, grief and political turmoil. He gives an inside view to one of the most complex issues of contemporary society, in a fast-moving story that keeps the reader wondering to the very end how any satisfactory resolution is possible.

Flying to Tombstone is a great story that puts the dilemma and challenges surrounding border issues in the southwestern part of our country into clear relief. The author writes compellingly about the social justice issues that emerge as a result of our historically ambigouous immigration policy and makes believable our citizens' varied response to it. While the book takes place in the context of the Lent and Easter church seasons (the primary protagonist is an Episcopal priest)and contains a variety of religious events and settings, the author never lapses into being either preachy or judgmental. Rather, in the course of telling a fast-moving and exciting story, he writes in an extremely balanced and interesting way about those pesky big issues we all face in life such as processing grief and loss, finding and celebrating our identity, discovering faith, engaging in questionable relationships, and expressing our political views. The characters are ordinary people struggling with the ordinary events and challenges of life - and the author is able to make all of them multi-dimensional and believable human beings. All in all, a engaging and exciting story. I'm looking forward to the sequel which is supposed to be published this coming spring.