Office of Innocence (Keneally, Thomas) - Hardcover

At the height of World War II, Father Frank Darragh, a young priest embarking on his new career in the church, finds himself torn between his conscience and the Catholic Church as he struggles with the temptation of the flesh in the person of seductive parishioner Kate Heggarty, a situation that is complicated by her murder and by accusations that he caused her death.

lly is a writer of extraordinary range: from Schindler’s List to The Great Shame his storytelling has engaged millions of readers. Now, after a brief departure into non-fiction, he is back with a novel as timely as it is enduring.

On the outskirts of Sydney, Father Frank Darragh is embarking on his new life of priesthood just as war erupts in the Pacific theater. American GIs pour into Father Darragh’s neighborhood, and with them comes a reminder of the atrocities abounding nearby. Determined to shun hypocrisy, the earnest priest finds himself constantly at odds with his superiors, who frown on his efforts to rescue an errant black soldier and pay deathbed visits to the wayward. But Frank Darragh persists, becoming his parish’s most popular confessor, particularly among wives of Australian servicemen who confront an array of temptations while their husbands are away.

One such parishioner, Kate Heggarty, turns the tables of temptat