The Sacrament

October 7, 2019
Olafsson (One Station Away) offers a mesmerizing and powerful look at abuse in the Catholic Church through the eyes of an elderly French nun called upon to revisit a two-decades-old case from 1987 in Iceland. Back then, Sister Johanna Marie, brought in to investigate because she had learned the language from her Icelandic college roommate, discovered that priests engaged in abhorrent behavior with impunity. Now, in 2009, she would rather tend her convent’s rose garden, but when a Cardinal calls upon her to obtain new evidence from a witness who will speak only to her, she agrees to help. The circumstances of the original case are vividly recalled: during an investigation of a priest accused of abusive behavior, the priest fell to his death from a bell tower. Johanna is concerned now about what this witness remembers and what he will reveal. Besides the investigation particulars, the reader discovers why Johanna became a nun and why she had to mask her feelings for her college roommate—a hidden love that impacted the rest of her life. The author shines a light on the enigmatic workings of the Catholic Church and, in an astounding dénouement, delves into the balance between justice and vengeance, and the power of conviction, absolution, and redemption. This is an incisive novel.

September 1, 2019

Could a nun's placid exterior hide a complicated and conflicted inner life? In his latest novel (after One Station Away), former Time Warner vice president Olafsson toys with the reader's assumptions. Prior to joining her order and taking the name Sister Marie Joseph, young Frenchwoman Pauline studied at the Sorbonne, where she found herself attracted to her charming Icelandic roommate, Halla. Throughout her ecclesiastical life, a diabolical priest threatens her with knowledge of her lesbian inclinations and finally sends her to Iceland to investigate a sexual predator priest, believing that he can manipulate her into whitewashing her report. Nevertheless, Sister Marie Joseph and a local man named Pall form a pair of dogged detectives, with the case taking a surprising turn. VERDICT Olafsson deftly braids present and past events as Sister Marie Joseph grapples with her recollections of Halla while ensnaring herself in the investigation. The sister's first-person voice seems dry and dispassionate, but the novel confounds our expectations, sifting through memory, as it evolves into a low-simmering psychological thriller. Recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 6/10/19.]--Reba Leiding, emerita, James Madison Univ. Lib., Harrisonburg, VA

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Using a crisp French accent, narrator Jane Copland embodies Sister Johanna Marie, the featured character in this introspective Icelandic novel. The French nun tells a story that moves fluidly between her years as a college student in Paris in the 1960s; her investigation of abuse at a Catholic school in Reykjavik, ending in a priest's fall from a bell tower in 1987; and her return to Iceland 30 years later to confront the boy, now a man, who witnessed it. Sister Johanna Marie's lifelong struggles with love and faith arise from her unspoken passion for her college roommate, a subplot that overshadows the mystery surrounding the priest's death. Copland's tone evokes the spirit of a woman who is full of sincerity and regret despite her feisty edge. S.T.C. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

October 1, 2019
Sister Johanna's refuge in a rural French convent can't hide her from the past, which comes screeching to the fore in the form of orders from manipulative, politically savvy Cardinal Raffin. New information has emerged regarding a case she investigated for Raffin decades ago in Reykjav�k, forcing Sister Johanna to steel herself to confront her life's gravest mistake. Through flashbacks, Sister Johanna reveals her first trip to Iceland in 1987, when her knowledge of Icelandic enabled her to investigate abuse allegations against Father August Frans, the parish school's headmaster. In Reykjav�k, Johanna became fast friends with the local bishop's assistant, who helped her pry information from the city's secretive Catholic community. Sister Johanna was certain that Father August was guilty of abusing his students, but Raffin abruptly ordered her to close the investigation without conclusion after Augustus plummeted from a bell tower in an apparent suicide. Now, Sister Johanna resigns herself to face the secrets she's hidden for 40 years. Her increasingly explosive revelations drive this gripping, masterfully constructed story toward redemption and justice.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)