The Beast of Bethulia Park

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Emerald finds Fr. Baines in the confessional and asks him, “So which is worse? Adultery, drug abuse or keeping quiet when you see others kill? You’d think being an accessory to murder is the easiest thing to avoid. But not in my job it ain’t. Does it make me a coward if I just carry on regardless?”

JUST LIFE - The Beast of Bethulia Park - Simon Caldwell

Catholic Medical Quarterly Volume 73(1) February 2023 Book Review The Beast of Bethulia Park By S.P. Caldwell Reviewed by Dr Pravin ThevathasanSet in present-day England, the novel is both a wild romp that includes fistfights, love interests, and the pursuit of a pair of murderous doctors, and a careful study of human agents navigating the present-day moral landscape. Beyond a portrayal of contemporary Britain shot through with literary and historical references, Caldwell also manages to depict the moral world in which both Catholics and non-Catholics find themselves. It is habitat that St. John Paul II famously identified in Evangelium Vitae as a “culture of death” built on a “veritable structure of sin.” S.P. Caldwell’s “The Beast of Bethulia Park” offers a dissident perspective to the culture of death. This powerful novel about one particular surreptitious serial killer serves as a metaphor for our world, in which Big Brother has formed an unholy alliance with Dr. Death, putting in place the systemic extermination of the weak and the voiceless, the very young and the very old. Do you remember, Tafida Raqeeb who in 2019 suffered from a sudden brain injury which left her fighting for her life. She was taken to Italy for further treatments. Further information can be found in www.tr-foundation.org.

The Beast of Bethulia Park”: A Catholic tale for summer “The Beast of Bethulia Park”: A Catholic tale for summer

This was an excellent read that was challenging subject matter but educational too, within the structure of a thriller that keeps you hooked from start to finish. Dr Gavin Ashenden talks to the journalist Simon Caldwell about his debut novel, The Beast of Bethulia Park, in this 21st episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald. If you can’t make it, we will be recording the event which will be available after the day on our John Bradburne Memorial Society YouTube channel. The blessing of same-sex unions by Catholic bishops should surely be stopped immediately. Indeed, why has this not happened? Indeed, for the archdiocese to fail to halt the promotion of such materials on its premises would have been a gross dereliction of duty. But don’t expect the mainstream media to tell you that.At the centre are two men and two women. Fr. Calvin Baines is a young, earnest and naïve priest who becomes embroiled in a quest, together with nurse Emerald Essien and journalist Jenny Bradshaigh to unmask a prominent and powerful doctor, Dr. Reinhard Klein. Klein, at one with the spirit of the Nazi doctors, is both talented and intelligent, but believes he is working for the common good when he kills old people in his care at Bethulia Park Hospital. In a post-coital conversation with Dr. Octavia Tarleton, his partner in adultery and murder, Klein says what he is doing is merciful. Mercy, Klein says, “needs, like so much else, to be redefined into something you can actually believe in. It needs to be purified for our century.” The young journalist is repelled by the way that the nurses are flirting with the dashing young doctor, forgetful of the fact that they are in a courtroom, “the little coquettes, joking and laughing with him as he settled into their midst, batting their eyelashes and giggling playfully as he held court, those closest to him leaning into him with their breasts.” She is repelled but she is also feeling an uncomfortable attraction and is embarrassed when Klein glances up and catches her staring at him. Like all good stories this brilliantly crafted debut novel is engaging and thought provoking. It takes a story to reveal truths about the human condition that cannot be revealed in any other way, we recognise ourselves in the great ones which is why they stand the test of time. Not only is this book hard to put down, but you’ll be thinking about it long after. This writer is certainly one to watch." To that end Catholic journalist Simon P. Caldwell’s debut novel “The Beast of Bethulia Park” more than fits the bill for a holiday or beachtime read, featuring a young protagonist priest, a mysterious string of hospital deaths, a journalist juggling a very modern sort of relationship, and a couple of nefarious characters who may or may not be connected with a historical bit of 17th-century anti-papist terrorism.