The Golden Altar
by Michael J. Merry
Four Seasons Publishers, Titusville, FL 2002
266 pages in paperback, $14.95

Here we have a novel by a Briton who's married to a Panamanian, who spent long years living and working in Latin America as a telecommunications specialist, newsroom manager and business show editor. His story's protagonist, retired British Army Major Henry Morgan, is a descendent of the Welsh pirate and Right Honourable Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica who aims to carry out a mission that his namesake neglected in 1671. He plans to steal the Golden Altar from Panama City's San Jose Church.

The tale is told in a straightforward third-person narrative, without a lot of plot twists or other literary devices, and not much dialogue until the latter part of the book. I imagine that if the folks at Panama's Board of Censors or some of our esteemed legislators get ahold of The Golden Altar they'll have fits, alleging that this novel amounts to a "how to" guide for looting and cultural vandalism. (On the other hand, this book features a dishonest journalist and I'm sure that many a Panamanian political hack would approve of THAT.)

Those who want to go slightly deeper in their critiques may find other political errors to decry, if they are wont to put on airs of exaggerated Panamanian nationalism or Zonian pride, or have a compulsion to point out usages that could be called racist or sexist. And yes, the many people who can't distinguish fiction from nonfiction will find ammunition for silly little criticisms to which they may be predisposed.

This book could have used some better editing. The inappropriate apostrophe or comma, the occasional sentence fragment and the main character's assertion that gold comes in 16 ounces to the pound --- with gold you deal with troy ounces, which come 12 to a pound, of course --- all serve as minor distractions. The reader with but a parochial command of English might find the mix of British, American, Caribbean and Spanglish dialects difficult or annoying, but that, too, is at most a slight distraction and a strength rather than an error.

Breeze past the little incongruities and you get a central tale of a clever theft, with side excursions into romance, moderately atrocious Falklands War psy-ops, an encounter with a cannibal tribe and low-keyed but biting remarks about British and Panamanian social themes. People who know the isthmus will be taken to familiar places and situations, which serve as believable backdrops for an outrageously audacious crime.

The Golden Altar won't be a bestseller and won't win any critics' awards, though it could very well form the basis for a good action movie. But I enjoyed it, and that's my bottom line.

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