Mysterion, September 2021

“Kirishitan” by Marshall J. Moore

Reviewed by Seraph

If the premise of Mysterion is that Christian fiction need not be boring nor dogmatic, this is a moderately successful attempt. Yukiko is a ronin, a masterless warrior of feudal Japan, who has been hired to drive away a demon haunting a local shrine. Uncharacteristically for fiction of this length, we’re given an exact time and place: Hizen Province, Japan, 1577. The daimyo is crucifying Believers for daring to worship a foreign God, and the demons in this land are no mere myths. Yukiko has her work cut out for her, and the elderly priest who hired her has secrets of his own that threaten all of them. While the story is neither boring nor dogmatic, it is comfortably slow-paced, and takes its time reaching the rather predictable destination. Again, none of this is bad, but it isn’t spectacular either. On the complimentary side, it does give an enjoyable amount of time to each character’s story, and I would like to read more of the author’s work.