About a month ago I started looking for a book called Father Elijah: An Apocalypse by Catholic novelist Michael O'Brien. About six years ago, I had read a review of it in Crisis Magazine, whose Web page I was designing. I was double curious, since my family in Canada have since become friends of O'Brien and the book had always interested me. I'd assumed I'd find it in the library or a used books store one day. The book proved elusive. Fortunately, an Amazon search finally turned it up, and I proceeded to order it.

I logged on to Amazon today to find that my home page had undergone a sea change: this rather sobering book about the decline in the sacrament of penance, a bestseller about the Passion (generally speaking) written by an author whose other books include one called Did Adam and Eve have Belly Buttons? and an interesting book on eschatology and fundamentalism with the provocative title Will Catholics be Left Behind?

Oh, and yes, Father Elijah was worth the wait.