Make Them Cry

by Kevin O'Brien

Pinnacle, May, 2002.
Paperback, 412 pages.
ISBN: 0786014512

Make Them Cry by Kevin O'Brien

A young boy is found drowned in the lake near a seminary in the Northwest. Father Murphy was both a teacher and friend to the boy and he becomes suspicious. Although it was ruled as death by drowning the boy was missing two fingers from one of his hands. He certainly doesn't buy the police's account that his hand might have skimmed sharp rocks along the bottom of the lake. Father Murphy starts investigating and quickly finds out that this is not the first unusual death at the seminary, and that the boy may have not been quite as perfect as he had thought -- he had been taking money from some of the older boys for sex. When more deaths occur around him, he feels certain someone is a murderer. Unfortunately, he and others he cares about are on the serial killer's list as well.

Make Them Cry is an engaging novel, with complex characters and a candid view of young men in a Northwest seminary, who are learning to become priests. Many of these boys are not quite the Church's vision of what future priests should be -- many have both thoughts of and act out their homosexuality. Even the investigating priest himself pursues his own sexual interests as he finds himself falling for the murdered boys' sister. In this setting, the serial killer mystery fits in well, as the heads of the seminary want nothing to do with the case (for risk of exposing some of the happenings in the seminary) and Father Murphy is left to solve the case on his own. Finding how the serial killer has twisted himself into the fabric of this quite little seminary with a creepy past is most interesting, and makes for great reading.

Make Them Cry is available for purchase on Amazon.com

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This review was published in the September, 2002 of The Internet Writing Journal.