Redemptor Domus - the tale’s in
the title. It translates as ‘the
redeemer of the house’ – the
‘house’ in this case being the
exclusive Roman Catholic College
of St Michael Monsalvat at
Pencadno. Pencadno is a small
holiday resort and quarrying
centre on the scenic North Wales
coast.
• Christmas 1945. A distressed German prisoner of war turns up out of the frosty night and batters on the lodge door, begging for a priest to hear his confession. “Then he must think he is in imminent danger of death.”
• Six months’ later a pupil steals an attaché case and runs off to London with it.
• A new boy arrives from the Far East. His father, an old boy of the school, had sent him off in high hopes. But by the time his ship arrives at Liverpool cruel fate has rendered the boy a stateless and destitute orphan.
Thus is set in train the life-affirming legend that is Redemptor Domus.
It soon becomes apparent that all is not as it should be with the regime at Monsalvat. During the unguarded war years the school has been taken over by a band of reprobate priests who foster malign secret societies among the boys. The angelic and gifted new boy is seen as a trophy by friends and enemies alike. Locked as they are into their scheming and dreaming they are no longer masters of their fate. Only an innocent can save Monsalvat from itself. That intolerable burden falls on the slight shoulders of the boy from Manchuria. As his inspiring story unfolds, an almighty web of intrigue unravels, the corrupt regime topples in flames and Pencadno is shaken to its granite foundations.
News
Another novel set in North Wales which came out at about the same time as Redemptor Domus is Fred Hurr’s Light of the Wicked published by Eloquent Books, an imprint of Strategic Book Group. While it is not for me to comment on its literary merit...