The HOUND of HEAVEN

By Peter McNiff

In 1970s Ireland, a seminarian's intelligence had become a liability.

Mondo's editorials-precise, unsettling, already circulating dangerously beyond clerical control-question the Church's moral authority at a moment when questioning still passes for betrayal. The Second Vatican Council had promised a Church remade; Rome has since drawn back.

Around Mondo, priests and nuns are leaving in numbers the bishops won't name. He stays, telling himself it's to fight from inside-for a Church that keeps its promises instead of just making them.

He negotiates a sabbatical. Officially, it is reflection. In practice, it is discipline.

Beyond the seminary, belief loses its abstractions. Mondo is drawn into lives shaped by silence rather than doctrine: Benicia, a gifted guitarist whose fierce dedication conceals old wounds when new ones surface; and her friend Nadya, sharp and politically alert, formed by displacement and inherited truths. Both women fall for the same man.

As desire, faith, and ambition collide, Mondo must decide not whether he believes, but whether belief-once managed, once bargained with-can survive as anything more than habit. Then love and betrayal build him, Benicia and Dadya, each a cage of their own making.

The Hound of Heaven is a story of power, silence, and the slow suffocation of a man who refused to kneel.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GLN9ZHS6
• ISBN13: 9798246423547
• Release Date: February 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 346 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"