cover image Den of Thieves

Den of Thieves

Katharine Stall. Simon & Schuster, $6.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-671-64055-2

This first novel is the lively account of a contemporary confrontation between the radical religious left and the Protestant fundamentalist right. Its heroine, P.K., a divinity student at New York City's Union Theological Seminary, is the daughter of Rev. Samuel Mather, jailed since 1972 for blowing up a trainload of bombs bound for Vietnam. P.K. is determined to walk the straight and narrow despite her radical upbringing, but her less conservative roommate, Rosie, intends to draw P.K. into the activist fold and succeeds when she enlists P.K.'s help in finding 13 Protestant ministers who have been kidnapped during their Sunday services. After discovering a link between the kidnappings and TV evangelist Rev. Anderson, Rosie's far-left ally J. Ashley Rittenhouse IV sends Rosie and P.K. on a cross-country search for the Soldiers of Jeremiah, a tiny, underground, left-wing organization that aims to crush the fundamentalist conspiracy. At an accelerating pace, Den of Thieves takes on a tough, touchy issue: whether in the face of overwhelming odds it is still possible, or sane, to take moral action, and whether in the face of failure, that action retains its significance and meaning. (November)