A Midwinter's Tale

Father Greeley introduces us to new and captivating fictional (but don't we know real-life folks similiar?) Irish-Catholic families in Chicago and deftly interweaves them with suspense in Post World War II Germany. But, here's a *WARNING* I wish I would have known when I started this book: this is "Part One" of the saga. Unlike the Blackie Ryan or Nuala Ann books, it is NOT self-contained. One must read the 2d of this series, _Younger Than Springtime_, to have even a glimmer of how it all ends. Order both now, so you won't have to pester your Postperson to keep reading ;-) I hope, to complete the saga (still not wholly resolved at the end of _Springtime_,)that there will be a _Summer_ and _Autumn_?

I enjoyed this book, spending the better part of a Sunday afternoon to finish it. It is the beginning of a series focused on bright and personable young Chuck O'Malley. The young man has the gift for detective work that is a common trait of Greeley's protagonists. While the setting and character types are familiar from other Greeley novels, the story is a pleasant exploration of familiar territory. This story provided a nice balance of action, suspense, and good characters. It's frustration is that it is the first installment in a series and just when you want more the book ends. Of course, the next installment is available as I write this belated review. Chuck O'Malley may just end up on my favorite character list along with Blackie Ryan and the Coynes (Dermot and Naula Ann).

I debated four stars or five but gave the author the benefit of the doubt for a compelling novel and interesting characters and settings. The narrator's (Charles O'Malley's) shifts from present to future to past were disconcerting and tempted me to remove one star. As usual, Greeley is a skilled chronicler of Irish-American Catholic life. In this book we also see something of the early postwar period in Germany with its misery, black market profiteering, and progress toward democracy. The relationship of Charles (or Chucky)and Rosemarie (or Rosie)is not really resolved and may be fodder for another novel.

A Midwinter's Tale is the beginning of a new series for Andrew Greeley, and the main character, Chucky O'Malley is one of his best ever! Chucky literally comes of age during the Depression and WWII, and his growing up in an Irish Catholic famiy in Chicago is a fine tale indeed. His bright wit and charm are irresistable to women, particularly his sister Peg's best friend, Rosemarie(Rosie)Clancy-who are more or less taken in by the O'Malley's due to her own mother's drinking problem and her investment banker father is rarely at home. But the real fun and action begins when after high school graduation Chucky serves in the Army Constabulary in post-war Germany. The story is one you will breeze through, anxiously awaiting the next installment of the series. Highly recommended.

The dust jacket says its set on 1947 but the first hundred pages--the funniest he has ever written--are tributes to an American Catholicism circa 1920-1965 at its most grotesque, mean, charitable, and loving. The next hundred give us the most charming faux naif narrator since Huck Finn, while exposing to a new generation what it was like to grow up in the depression and survive into the postWar's endless miracles. The German setting enriches the background of his earlier Blackie book by taking us to a Germany of the generation previous to the Bishop and the Three Kings. Finally, his hero owes us another book--- the culmination of the novel is so powerful that I can only hope it is just ACT One