The Inquisitor’s Diary

An inquisitor seeking to escape Mexico for greener pastures and greater opportunities within the church finds himself scouring the countryside for heathens and heretics to fetch for the stake and God’s divine judgment. When he crosses paths with a mute man who practices pagan traditions, he reluctantly brings the man back for trial. As doubts pile up in his mind during the trial of “The Dumb One,” the inquisitor struggles to find his place in God’s grand design. If he has one in it at all.

The Inquisitor’s Diary is a curious experiment, humanizing a fictional representative of the Inquisition through the secret doubts and actions revealed in a diary he keeps. The novel asks hard questions about love, grace, faith, and justice, worthwhile questions to be sure. But the narrative does hinge on a single question about our diarist, Fray Alonso: Can such zeal be so deeply shaken by a single encounter? If you believe so, then The Inquisitor’s Diary becomes an enthralling tale about the transformative power of the human experience. If you don’t, the novel feels a tad inconsistent as Fray Alonso vacillates between righteousness and crippling doubt.

In either case, the novel should spark some worthwhile discussion.