Avelyn thought of saints in paintings again. There were often other paintings hidden underneath that final layer of colour. You could see them under the right kind of light, those deeper iterations where the saint was not smiling, or where instead of cotton, they wore armour. The more time he spent with Jericho, the more he saw flashes of armour. [loc. 4493]
Avelyn Brocken is a Jesuit priest, 'sent from the Vatican to investigate something that was either miraculous or requiring an exorcist'. He is the only person in the Vatican who speaks Hreod -- the language of Hreodwater, a remote and inaccessible place somewhere in East Anglia that does not appear on any maps, contains the most valuable salt mine in Europe, is a place of pilgrimage, and seems to have been the site of a miracle. An American priest walked again after two years in a wheelchair ... and then, on camera, turned to a pillar of salt.
Avelyn very much does not want to return to Hreodwater. He left after his entire family were killed, and has spent the intervening decade or so lasering off his tattoos, studying, and aware that (unlike his mentor, Father Li) he feels nothing during worship, except cold. He has come to understand, over the last decade, that he was raised in a cult: but he still believes that there is something beneath Hreodwater: something called the Salt King, that has protected the community for centuries. He does not believe it is good.
Meanwhile, in Jordan, nuclear safety inspector Dr Tallis Osho is investigating a mysterious structure in the desert, which may be emitting radiation. Her colleague Dr Saloman Akhbar identifies the black metal spikes protecting the structure as silver. There are other anomalies from around the world: coins always landing heads-up, electronic equipment failing and emitting spikes of salt, random number generators no longer being random (with calamitous consequences for capitalism), fortune tellers finding clear images in coffee grounds and sand...
But the focus is on Avelyn, and his uncomfortable friendship with / attraction to Jericho (the doctor at Hreodwater), and the gradual revelations of the events leading up to his departure from Hreodwater. It's a strange place, with a subterranean abbey, an ancient language -- and a strange 'salt light', that only Hreoda can see, which illuminates wonders and horrors.
I loved this, despite some flaws -- Tallis's story felt distinctly secondary to Avelyn's -- and some disappointments. Avelyn is very much a product of his training, and he holds some views that I found unpleasant. Pulley doesn't gloss over the scandals of the Church, either: Father Li is viewed with suspicion in some quarters for having 'abducted' Avelyn and taken him to Rome. God, apparently, told him to do it.
As usual in Pulley's novels, there is plenty of humour, often in footnotes, to lighten the darker aspects of the novel. And there are mammoths, cephalopods, Dionysus, shield walls, and linguistic oddities. It's not a wholly happy ending for all concerned, but I found it very satisfying.
Read because: Natasha Pulley is my favourite author (and I had to wait until publication day because Netgalley don't give me her books in advance).
“Are you, like, neurodiverse?”
“No, I’m a Jesuit.” [loc. 1656]
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