Deacon’s crime thriller features moral dilemma; Stepien contemplates meaning of mortality
Detroit — Two area Catholics have recently written books for some summer reading.
Deacon Bob Ovies, former director of the Archdiocese of Detroit’s Office of Family Life, finished his second novel through Ignatius Press titled Barely a Crime, now available through Amazon and www.ignatius.com.
Deacon Ovies describes the books as a “morality, thriller tale, with the underlining current of what happens when you try to play God.” Deacon Ovies’ first novel, The Rising, was published in 2014.
The second book, Dying to be Happy – Discovering the Truth About Life, by Chris Stepien, is a spiritual non-fiction about embracing one’s own mortality and living life to the fullest before everyone’s eventual death.
Drawing inspiration from his wife’s battle with breast cancer, Stepien highlights the experiences of different people — including his wife — and the struggle to embrace mortality while living a God-centric life.
Dying to be Happy is Stepien’s second book, following Three Days: The Search for the Boy Messiah, and is available now on Amazon. Stepien will host a book signing at 7:30 p.m. June 1 at O’Kelley Banquet Hall in Dearborn.
Barely a Crime
Deacon Ovies’ Barely a Crime is a crime thriller with some religious, moral elements sprinkled into the plot.
Set in the future, two Northern Irishmen living in the criminal underworld are given a job that doesn’t involve theft or murder — something considered “barely a crime.”
Deacon Ovies said the novel isn’t particularly religious, but deals with moral questions humanity will have to face in the future.
“A lot of us mess with the edges, saying, ‘This isn’t really that bad,’” Deacon Ovies told The Michigan Catholic. “I didn’t really have a moral to the story, but Ignatius said in the review trying to play God is a dangerous thing, and there is no such thing as barely a crime.”
The novel considers the lengths to which science and technology push the bounds of human progress and whether there is limit to what mankind should or shouldn’t do.
But while the scientific questions raised are interesting, Deacon Ovies said the plot focuses on the people and the moral dilemmas that arise from one misguided decision.
“It’s not a sci-fi book; it’s a book about a theft that seems like barely a crime at first,” he said. “These people are involved with various levels of crime, which at first feels like nobody is going to get hurt. But it leads to a series of things and more and more they start slipping.”
Dying to be Happy – Discovering the Truth about Life
Days before Thanksgiving 2014, Stepien and his wife were in a doctor’s office, where the doctor confirmed to the couple that Stepien’s wife, Ellen, had breast cancer.
As the couple dealt with the reality of chemotherapy, Stepien began contemplating mortality and an age-old question: “If you had one day to live, how would you spend it?”
With thoughts on the topic, Stepien began writing a series of stories about people he personally knew, as well as historical figures and their close experiences with death, exploring how it spurred them to making great changes in their lives.
Dying to be Happy delves into Scripture’s advice about how God wants mankind to live, realizing that life in this world is not forever.
“In some ways, the book wrote itself,” Stepien told The Michigan Catholic. “So many things helped us in this experience. Your wife is part of you, so you go through the treatments with her, you experience everything with her, gaining insight, learning lessons God has for both of you and to look out for what he’s trying to tell you.”
The book’s stories range from Stepien’s mother, who lived through the Nazi invasion of Poland during World War II, to Frederic Ozanam, the young French law student who risked his life serving the poor and formed the Conference of Charity in 1833, which eventually evolved into the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.
“Death has a way to put on a certain perspective,” Stepien said, “be it some life-threatening disease or a car crash. Somehow, when we experience a whiff of death, and by the grace of God we live, it’s a great learning opportunity. Once we acknowledge the fact we’re going to die and embrace it, that leads to all sorts of opportunities for us to truly live.”
‘Barely a Crime’
By Deacon Robert Ovies
Ignatius Press (2016)
222 pages (paperback)
$13.56
www.ipnovels.com/novels/barely-a-crime
‘Dying to be Happy – Discovering the Truth about Life’
By Chris Stepien
Beacon Publishing (2016)
117 pages
$24.95 (hardcover)
www.amazon.com
