Customer Reviews

The Only Good Priest

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I knew this book had to be good when I read the two reviews prior to mine on amazon.com. As a member of the gay community and a recovering Roman Catholic (who thoroughly enjoys the spiritually fulfilling practice of Catholicism I find in the Episcopal Church), not only was I not offended by anything in this book, I actually enjoyed it.

Like the movie "Priest," there are a number of Roman zealots of the "one true church" ilk who are out to write negative reviews of anything that tells it like it is where the Roman Church is concerned whether they've read it or not.

Mr. Zubro is to be congratulated for an engrossing mystery that will surprise its gay and lesbian readers in a positive way, a respectable entry in his "Tom and Scott" series of whodunits.

More power to him!

Friends approach school teacher Tom Mason and ask him to investigate the death of Father Sebastian, who was involved in the gay Catholic organization Faith. It's another opportunity to see the interplay between Tom and his lover, baseball star Scott Carpenter, and the characters get deeper and more interesting in each outing. I love the way Tom and Scott are both macho guys, each in his own way, and yet they're both surprisingly vulnerable.

Neil Plakcy, author of Mahu Surfer: A Hawaiian Mystery (An Alyson Mystery)

I couldn't put this book down. I was riveted to each page. I am told by one who should know that my expression as I read grew humbled, awed. THE ONLY GOOD PRIEST is Mark Richard Zubro's WORST Tom and Scott mystery--and that's saying something.

Where to begin? The cast of unlikable stereotypes? Scratch that. The cast of insulting stereotypes, from the ugly femi-nazi dikes to the corrupt and lecherous priests? The gratuitous appearance of Zubro's other series star Paul Turner (and I thought Zubro couldn't create characters more flat and personality-less than Tom and Scott--how I underestimate the man)! The inexcusable lack of plausible motive--unless one does manage to swallow Zubro's nauseating cliches. Or how about the fact that heroic Tom is captured and beaten up by girls twice?

No, I think what really sets this mystery apart from the other Tom and Scott books is the sheer, ignorant bigotry. In quick succession assorted Zubro characters toss off the following unchallenged statements:
He was the first priest we'd met who didn't indulge in condescension and put-down games, two skills they must have classes in for the modern Catholic seminary.
We have ways of dealing with such issues (secretly married priests)...I'm sure you're not naive enough to think that Father Clarence is unique.
As the AIDS epidemic spread more and more priests had been dying of the disease.
You raise an unfortunate issue (priests who molest children). Yes we have priests with faults...alcoholics...thieves...

I was disappointed Zubro left out the pregnant nuns, infants buried under churches and black masses at midnight.Can this be the same man who wrote in 1995's THE FINE ART OF MURDER: "Today any sterotypical depiction is unwelcome in any author's writing, and when such a view is based on hate, prejudice, or deliberate ignorance, it can be easily seen as malicious or irresponsible."

Practice what you preach, Mark.

When I read the first five pages I knew I was in trouble. The writing throughout the book was very flat. Keeping track of all the characters was a monumental feat that left you wondering WHY they were actually written into this novel. About the only completely "fleshed" out character was Scott - The main character's lover who happened to be a Baseball athlete. Sprinkled adorations of this character created many stalls to the story line that I began to NOT care for Tom or Scott. I also found myself cringing at all the location descriptions given to the reader about Chicago. Again, this intricate location detail created a stall to my reading. Hasn't this writer figured out that less is more? Yet, I continued through the 182 pages HOPING to get some real writing style that would drive me to the entertainment value I get when reading a Joseph Hansen novel. How sad I was to see this book finish flat. Time to cleanse my brain with a Dave Brandstetter detective read. Oy....

First, let me begin by saying that I'm really a great fan of Mark Richard Zubro's Tom & Scott Mysteries. I have purchased all of them except the most recent book, which I will get to shortly. I have always found them interesting, and always look forward to picking up the next in the series when I finish reading the previous.

Second, I am not Roman Catholic... recovering, lapsed or otherwise. Formerly Lutheran and now happily Episcopalian. I am not angry Roman Catholic zealot in any way, shape or form.

I was terribly disappointed by the constant negativity toward the Roman Catholic Church, clergy, religious people, etc. expressed by Zubro through his characters in this book. Even the title of the book reflects that negative bias. Of course I wouldn't want characters to turn a totally blind eye to issues within the Church... which include pedophelia, sexually active "celibate" priests, etc. I find it interesting that Zubro, through his characters, gets bent out of shape that the priests have a nice car, an answering machine, do not live in a hovel and even have shined shoes and a good suit (while his characters live in luxury with expensive sports cars, penthouse apartments, fully equipped home gyms and more money than they know what to do with.) While the author seemed to want the reader to share his feeling that the priests were hypocrites for living a comfortable lifestyle, this reader's reaction was the opposite... I kept thinking that Tom & Scott were the ones who were hypocritical, judgmental and bigoted.

Will I stop reading books in this series... absolutely not. As I mentioned, I like all of the books I've read by Zubro. "The Only Good Priest", however, is a HUGE disappointment.

This has to be one of the dullest mysteries I have read. I felt like the whole book was a mere excuse for the author to express his venom against the Catholic Church. Characters have less personality than dry bread, they are nothing but extreme stereotypes with name labels. The events are almost non-events; things seem to happen but no real progress is made. When the murderer is finally revealed, a reader couldn't care less because it is difficult to remember who is who! And the writing style - after a while, I began to wonder if it was that flat and mundane on purpose!

I liked one thing about this book, though. My copy was only 182 pages long.