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Discussion Guide

Riots. Terrorist attacks. Neo-Nazi violence.

In modern-day Germany, journalist Catriona McClelland has seen it all while covering the contemporary European scene for a Catholic news organization. Keeping herself above the political fray in her professional life, she has also managed to keep herself from personal entanglements-still hurt from the wounds of a broken relationship. Things come to a head when her boyfriend Dennis, frustrated with a lack of commitment, leaves her for Suzy Davis, an idealistic young Canadian who is involved with a left-wing protest movement. But when Suzy is murdered... who is complicit and who is innocent?

Ripped from the headlines, Ceremony of Innocence is a very contemporary novel of Europe on the edge of social breakdown. Train stations are bombed and migrants targeted for violence as journalists and other tastemakers watch from their positions of privilege.

Dorothy Cummings McLean's realistic narrative does not describe the feats of heroes. Rather, it unnervingly lays bare the way religious faith and moral reasoning can be easily manipulated and compromised.

"I highly recommend this enjoyable, interesting and well-written novel that gives rare insight into present-day Germany." 
-Piers Paul Read, Author, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors

p>"A true joy to read. In a literary world increasingly distended with stale predictability, it's so energizing to read something genuinely original and vibrant." 
-Michael Coren, TV Host, Author, Heresy: Ten Lies They Spread About Christianity

p>"An exciting debut novel. It is well-paced, intelligent, and suspenseful. In the style of Graham Greene, Dorothy McLean has placed her characters on the knife-edge between terror and salvation." 
-Richard Greene, Ph.D., Professor of English, University of Toronto

"A terrifying voyage into a sinister underworld of political extremism and spiritual confusion. It is replete with dark secrets, betrayals and above all, damaged young people struggling to find a sense of purpose amid the moral chaos of near-contemporary Europe. The novel's stunning climax will leave the reader reeling with shock." 
-Fiorella De Maria, Author, Poor Banished Children

"McLean opens a disturbing window into a parallel world where twenty-first century Catholics walk the line between the ceremony and the reality of innocence. Amidst hedonism, Neo-Nazism, banal leftism and militant Islam lurk murder and treachery with only the merest hint of redemption. Bewildering and exhilarating by turns."
-Alan Fimister, Ph.D., International Theological Institute

p>"A fast-paced thriller in which Terrorist International wages war against Europe, America and Christian civilization. All human life is here-drugs and degenerate music; neo-Nazis, enigmatic spooks and terrified Muslim immigrants; bombs, quarrelling lovers and scheming Eurotrash-and, underpinning everything is sorrow, contrition and hope."
-Stuart Reid, former editor, The Spectator