Times of Distress
Description
MYSTERY SUBVERSION AND ROMANCE
REVISION 2025 MYSTERY SUSPENSE AND ROMANCE
Fr Jos van Engelen, a Dutch missionary priest stationed in New Guinea before World War II, is recalled to Holland to help his superior general combat ideological subversion within his fraternity. He arrives in March 1940.
On the way to Holland, British intelligence enlists and trains him for covert operations, but after the Nazis invade Holland, his covert plans go horribly wrong. He flees from betrayal and the murder of trusted colleagues to Amsterdam, where he joins the Dutch resistance. For the next five years, directed by the mysterious Femke, he works in covert roles, staying ahead of Nazi detection units and dealing with the occult.
When the Nazis fire on a crowd in May 1945, he saves a young woman and her baby from being crushed. So begins an unspoken relationship with the Strict Reformed Truus van den Donker and a deadly tussle with her brutish occultist husband.
After the war, the conflict continues with those he suspects of betraying him. The conflict comes to a head during and after the Second Vatican Council and results in more measures to get him out of the way. At the same time, he must confront sinister occultist forces, apparently connected with Truus's occultist husband, that want him dead.
This is a story of courage, unswerving faith and commitment against diabolical forces Fr Jos can hardly conceive.
The cultural revolution of the long 1960s (1960-1975) brought in one of the greatest cultural shifts the world has known. Music, dress, moral ideas, social manners, and political attitudes were turned upside down. The war generation hardly knew what motivated the post-war generation. Across Western Society a social fissure opened. The leaders of the revolution were twenty-year-olds ('Don't trust anyone under 30), mostly from an educated middle-class background.
The Sixties series will consist of eight connected but stand-alone stories. The themes of the 'Goddess', neo-paganism, and Gnosticism are threads through the stories. The historical, political, and ideological background is the cultural revolution of the long 1960s and the Second Vatican Council. The author who lived through those times recreates its atmosphere.
Book 1 Times of Distress
Book 2 In this Vale of Tears
Book 3 Counterculture Dreams
Book 4 The Counterculture Goddess (2025)
Book 5 Love in the Counterculture (2026)
Book 6 Dreams to Nightmare (2026)
Book 7 The Castle of Heavenly Bliss
Book 8 A Sense of Loss due 2027
More details
Person
After a lifetime working in the book business (mostly educational publishing) I now concentrate on my writing.
One of my formative experiences was living in Holland with my Dutch wife for two and a half years. On returning to Australia, I completed a major in Dutch Language and Literature before a master's degree in philosophy. My studies and immersion in another culture and language, together with my Catholic faith, form the biggest influences on my writing. But shaping those influences are my mother and father. One could not have more principled parents.
My master's thesis was on Edmund Burke whose thought permeates my writing. My preoccupations are social and cultural from a Catholic and (Burkean) conservative perspective. This reflects my acceptance of the Catholic idea of the reciprocal relationship between faith and reason.
My favourite fiction authors are Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and Evelyn Waugh. Evelyn Waugh's style and mastery of English have been my biggest influence ? not in vain, I hope. My favourite modern non-fiction author is philosopher Roger Scruton. I spend my leisure time reading and occasionally walking along the nearby shores of Port Phillip Bay. I love opera, musicals, and the ballet (The Nutcracker is my favourite.) I enjoy fifties rock 'n' roll and forties big band. Mozart is my favourite classical composer, but I am acquiring a liking for Bach.
My novels are in the genre of the 'Catholic novel'. They are in the style of Catholic novelists Evelyn Waugh, Grahame Greene, and Morris West. I deal with similar political, philosophical, and moral issues. The difference from general fiction is the assumed philosophical framework. Most modern fiction assumes a materialist framework while the Catholic novel assumes a natural law framework (See the 'Catholic Novel' page on my website.) Finally, there is always a romantic content in my stories. Love relationships are an incisive way of exploring the human person.
