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Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
In Robert Crompton’s The Dark Side of Gilead, cabinetmaker Vic Scanlon returns to Colinton after schoolmate Amy Rashid asks about the girl he saw locked inside elder Len Robinson’s junk room twenty years earlier. Vic reported the discovery as a child, but the Fellowship of Gilead, an insular Christian sect, branded him a liar while his friend Nigel Clifford withdrew his support. Amy believes the incident may connect Robinson to allegations involving other girls, leading her and Vic to trace the child’s identity and determine what happened after she disappeared. Nigel, once devoted to Gilead and now running an anonymous online campaign against it, begins pursuing the same story for different reasons. As their searches draw closer to Robinson, testimony collides with ambition, leaving Vic determined to establish what he saw before someone else exploits it.
Robert Crompton’s The Dark Side of Gilead is a well-executed literary suspense novel, showing how a religious system protects men by teaching everyone else to distrust themselves. Amy is brilliantly written, especially during her judicial hearing, when she moves her chair to the elders’ table and makes them answer for a horrific experience forced on her in childhood. It is a perfect example of Crompton turning Gilead’s procedures against its leaders. Honestly, the most fascinating character to me is Nigel. Crompton draws him as cunning, but it's hard not to enjoy following his storyline, treating the memories of others as fuel for the persona he hopes will make him famous. That contrast gives the book its sharpest point: leaving Gilead does not remove Gilead from the way someone treats other people. Readers seeking literary fiction about religious abuse will adore this book. Very highly recommended.
