Writing from a priest's point of view is difficult. Most people do so badly. So often, the writer descends into cliché. Priests in literature are often either so good that they are uninteresting or so bad that they are unbelievable. A few people have written priests well.

Graham Greene wrote priests well. Then again, he wrote everything well.

Gerald Locklin wrote priests well.

And James R. Callan writes priests well in his novel Cleansed by Fire.

Father Frank is Callan's protagonist. He's a priest having to deal with the new realities of a small town. Corrupting influences are moving in and trying to destroy the peace that he's built with his parishioners. Kids are being seduced by drugs. The adults of his parish don't believe in themselves. Worst of all, someone is burning down the local Baptist churches. It's up to Father Frank to go out and stop the destruction of his small community.

You don't have to be a Catholic to like this novel because Callan's protagonist is clearly and fully written. Unlike so many badly written priests, Father Frank is a real person with real faults. He struggles with his faith and doubts.

When someone pushes him, he wants to fight, and one of the levels of tension in this well-written book is Father Frank's personal struggle to remain faithful to the principles that he loves. It isn't easy for him, and that makes the book so interesting to read. One of the themes I really get tired of is priests struggling with sexual identity. That's not Father Frank's problem. He struggles with the violence of his nature, and we see him running headlong into dangerous situations again and again only to arrive unsure of what to do.

I really enjoyed Cleansed by Fire, and I'm glad it's part of a series. I want to watch Father Frank grow as all great characters do.

I really enjoy cozy mysteries when they're this good. And when a writer makes a crime-solving priest as interesting to a Southern Baptist reader as Jim Callan has done, he's really accomplished something. In so many of the cozy mysteries I've read, the crime solving is pretty much the whole story. This plot is much more rounded out, though--with a number of teen activities and even an adult romance (no, not Father Frank!). At no point did I feel that the story was dragging, and that's a major accomplishment, too. I thought Jim Callan handled the Christian elements well--and in a way that would be acceptable to most Christians. Cleansed by Fire would make a great read for teens as well as adults, I believe. Maybe even for teen boys.