I'm afraid I'm going to have to put down a book that I'm currently reading. For good. It's called The Heartbreaker, by Susan Howatch. She's an author that I like immensely; it's extremely well-written, it's interesting, and I care about the characters.

The problem is the plot line. While I'm sure that good will win out over evil in the end, the trip that Howatch takes to get there is rather disturbing. Some of her other books have definitely gotten into issues that I'm not entirely comfortable reading about, but this one seems to go further. Or maybe it's just me and where I am in my spiritual life.

The story centers around a group of characters who have appeared in previous novels, and their mission, so to speak, is to bring Christ into the lives of others who live on the seedier side of modern British life. I have no doubt that the characters and situations are realistic, and perhaps even based on real people, but I just don't want to read about them!

The "heartbreaker" is a straight(???) male prostitute who caters to very high-class, secretly gay men. He's troubled and confused, defensive, bright, articulate, and even likeable, in his better moments, but I feel kind of dirty, I guess, every time I read this story.

In the past, Howatch's novels have always skirted the edge of what's acceptable in society, what goes on behind closed doors, truly delving into the psyches of her very well-developed characters, but this one seems to go farther into the details of a degrading lifestyle of a young man controlled by some very evil people indeed. Maybe this needs to put out there as an instructive example of what kind of evil there is in this world, maybe, but again, I just don't want to read about it.

Why then, you may ask, all my throngs of readers, don't I just quit reading it and go on to the next thing in my stack of library books? Because it's such a good book! Dang it! But something about it doesn't feel right. After I put the book down, I've sometimes thought of the verse:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
Philippians 4:7-9

and I don't think this book qualifies! Unfortunately.