Christian Martyrs for a Muslim People

McGee is an English Benedictine monk on a mission. A lifelong Francophile, he first learned of the deaths of 19 French Catholic nuns, brothers and priests in Algeria during the mid-1990s from an article in a Catholic journal. Afterwards, he wrote to the archbishop of Algeria requesting the chance to make pilgrimage to the country and witness the sites where the violence had occurred. The result is this moving overview of the lives of the martyrs and a hopeful portrait of a Christian community prepared to die for love of its Muslim neighbors. McGee retells the events of the Islamist revolution that saw the departure of nearly 100,000 Christian settlers during Algeria's civil war. McGee describes how a few dozen Catholic religious chose to stay behind to continue as medics, teachers, librarians and friends to the poor. Although the book fails to provide a balanced view of the motivations that led to the murders, it makes a strong case for continued dialogue between Christians and Muslims. (Sept.)