Father Malachy's Miracle

By Bruce Marshall Father Malachy Murdoch has wrought a miracle. One ordinary-seeming Saturday night in Edinburgh, the “Garden of Eden” dance-hall is doing a very brisk business, when the answer to Father Malachy’s prayer arrives all of a sudden: the building and its inhabitants are removed to the island of Bass Rock. The consequences of this miracle seemingly know no bounds. The media, the clergy, the scientists, the general public all converge in seeking an explanation, whether material or spiritual, as to how this event could have transpired. At the center of the controversy and chaos calmly stands Father Malachy, disdaining both the crass excesses of the world and the pusillanimous explications found even among Christians, and laying claim to the the simple saving grace of God for his wandering sheep. Brought, at long last, back into print, Father Malachy’s Miracle is just as clever, comedic, and downright enjoyable as the day it first unassumingly appeared as “a heavenly story with an earthly meaning.” * * * Bruce Marshall (1899–1987) was a Scottish writer, accountant, veteran of both World Wars, and convert to Roman Catholicism. In a career spanning six decades, Marshall wrote forty novels, five of which will feature in the Cluny Classics series: Father Malachy’s Miracle, The Month of the Falling Leaves, The Accounting, Vespers in Vienna, and A Thread of Scarlet. Paperback: 200pp. ISBN: 978-1685950095